Darkness Grows
by overkill-Max
Summary: Spencer finally makes it out of Rosewood but not before picking up a few scars along the way. Paige is the only one from her past that she keeps in contact with and when their growing attraction can't be ignored anymore Paige will have to choose between the woman she loves and the one that understands the darkness within. (Paily/McHastings)
1. The Bar

It's a dark night. If it weren't for the light spilling from streetlamps onto the dirty sidewalks, urging her forward, guiding her along, she would have sworn that she was still locked away in her empty house, hiding from the sunshine beneath her sheets. As she walks down the street she pulls her coat tighter around her slim frame, shivering against the night air but refusing to hurry to her destination to get out of the cold. She doesn't need to rush; she knows that the man she's meeting is still going to be there, regardless of the time she gets there. She has all night if she needs it. But she doesn't want to be out here with the echo of her footsteps as her only companion. She doesn't want to be surrounded by unpacked boxes in her house either. So she heads to the one place where she feels like she belongs.

The dark street winds up the hill and she occasionally catches a glimpse of her breath suspended in front of her face. The temperature feels like it keeps dropping with every step she takes and still, she presses on. The only thing she can hear is her own labored breathing. She's been living here for over a year and she still hasn't gotten used to the ups and downs, the hills that make up this city. As she reaches the top she feels relieved, the broken neon sign flashes invitingly, letting her know that at the end of the street lays her destination. The only place that feels safe in this dark city. Not because she's scared of what shadows hide… she stopped fearing the dark the second she learned that it doesn't conceal anything. People are monsters in their own right. And no light can shine bright enough inside their hearts to break through the darkness. So she goes to a place where she can be surrounded by people like herself because it makes her feel safe to be among those lost souls… all those wretched little things, that like her, have a penchant for self-destruction the way others have an insatiable sweet tooth.

She reaches the door that leads her to paradise and as her hands leave her pockets to reach out for the brass handle, they start turning red, protesting against the wind and the cold. She grips the faded door handle and pushes the door open with her shoulder. The wood always swells with this weather.

Stepping inside she's greeted by the world weary faces of her friends. Other invalids… cripples… broken things like her. People whose names she learned by becoming just like them; a constant fixture in this dingy place filled with too many painful memories that cling to the walls like cigarette smoke. Louie glances up from where he stands and nods at her, he knows what she wants and before she starts unbuttoning her coat, his fat, sausage like fingers, drop three ice cubes into a tall glass. Followed by some whiskey and topped off with some dark cola. She reaches the bar grabs her drink, bringing it to her lips and taking a sip. In another life she would have protested the unhygienic practices that Louie keeps, but that's in the past. She's no longer that girl. She looks into the mirror behind the dust covered bottles behind Louie and the girl that stares back at her is distorted by the grime that covers the dirty surface. "Rough night pretty eyes?" Louie asks. She doesn't bother faking a smile because every night for the past year and a half has been just that. Rough and tempestuous, like the weather here. Ironic how she moved to California for the sun and she ended up in the only city that's made up entirely of fog and mornings that chill her to the bone.

She just nods and takes another sip of her drink and Louie makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat before picking up a glass and wiping it down with the rag that always seems to be on him. He's not really cleaning it so much as moving the dirt around from one spot to another but she doesn't care. She just likes that he doesn't card her, even though she's clearly underage. Back when she accidentally arrived here, that rainy night, many months ago to use the phone, she was handed a glass without any questions. Louie just knew her drink just by looking at her. One she didn't know she would come to crave. After her fourth or sixth glass of liquid courage she finally worked up the nerve to ask him why. All Louie told her was that he had always been a sucker for girls with pretty eyes and she was lucky to have those big brown eyes of hers because they were the prettiest he'd ever seen on a dame. From then on she tended to gravitate towards this place, until she could no longer deny the pull she felt. Maybe it was destiny that her heel had broken and her phone had run out of battery just as she was walking down this particular street that summer night.

She blinks away the memories, she hates reliving the past but sometimes it gets away from her before she can stop herself from doing the one thing she despises. The ice in her glass finishes melting down and Louie is already setting another glass down next to her. She nods, acknowledging his efficiency, thanking him as she takes the last swig of her drink. One that's mostly made out of watered down whiskey and cola. Pushing the glass away from her body, she reaches out for her new drink, bringing it closer to herself. Even if she's not ready to drink it just yet, she likes the solid feeling of holding onto it, of never letting it out of her sight. Years of constant survival have changed her habits to one of constant vigilance, of never taking her surroundings for granted and of trusting no one. It should make her feel hopeless instead of normal, that paranoia that relentlessly tells her to recheck her locks and constantly look behind her as she walks, even in her own home. It doesn't though because it's her version of normal. She stopped questioning her own warped thinking when it helped her live through the horrors of her past. When it was the only thing that enabled her to make it to the end. Back when she was that girl that is so far removed from who she is now. The one that searches the dark liquid for answers, for secrets, for ways to quiet down her thoughts when they become much too loud. She stares at it as if it could reveal something new to her. Biting down on her lip, tasting her own lipstick and regretting the fact that it is hopeless to stumble around for things in the dark because you might uncover things that should have stayed buried. Because the truth can scar in ways you can't predict and unlearning things is impossible. To stop herself from going down this path again she takes a drink and then another and a third. Trying to quench a thirst that's not entirely physical.

When she's well into her third drink the door to the bar opens and closes, letting a gust of cold air inside, along with a new patron. She doesn't need to look up. She already knows who it is. Everyone at the bar knows because the other girl always shows up at the same time, like clockwork. It's not a set hour, so much as a feeling when the other girl shows up, it's only when she's comfortably numb around the edges that the door opens to let the other girl in. Her confident steps, different from her own measured ones in high heels, approach the bar until the other girl is standing right next to her, not quite invading her personal space but close enough to be noticed. The other girl's fingers begin working on unbuttoning her coat and nodding at Louie who sets a glass of apple juice that looks like piss in front of her. "Thanks Louie, good night tonight?" He shrugs at the other girl, not fully trusting her easygoing nature because it's too much of a contrast from his sullen patrons. He simply goes back to his never ending task of cleaning glasses, ignoring the dust that collects all over the rest of the bar, that seems to cover this whole bar in a thin film of grime.

As her drink disappears and the other girl has yet to speak or finish her own she sighs and starts pulling at her cuticles. A nervous habit she never gave up just to get a rise out of her perfectionist mother. It's nowhere near closing time but already she feels that familiar uneasiness start to creep along her spine. The one that makes her feel uncomfortable if she sits still for too long, if she's not constantly looking behind her back while living her life. The other girl senses her discomfort and stands up, grabbing some cash from her pockets and setting it under her glass, paying for both of them. The drops of condensation are quickly soaked up by the crumpled bills and she's startled when she feels a hand on her shoulder. "Come on Spence, time to get you home." She laughs at this because the house that stores all her belonging feels more like a prison than a home sometimes but she doesn't protest because she can't stand to be here any longer. It's not the place, it's something within her, the eternal apprehension she could never leave behind, even after she escaped Rosewood barely alive. Spencer just shakes her head and stands up. The other girl grabs Spencer's coat and holds it up for her, waiting for Spencer to ease into it, always the picture perfect gentleman. "Thanks." Spencer says automatically. "My pleasure." The other girl answers genuinely and Spencer just nods at their familiar exchange. The other girl pulls her own coat on and extends her hand towards the exit, indicating that Spencer should go first, and so she starts making her way outside.

As they step out into the night Spencer involuntarily shivers, her coat feels flimsy and useless against the biting cold that came down hard on the city while they were inside. A second layer of warmth is added on top of her shoulders and she can't stop herself from complaining, even when she's selfishly grateful for the warmth that smells like its owner. "Don't be ridiculous. If I'm cold you must be freezing. Take it back." She says, not trying to take it off her own shoulders. The other girl just shrugs and pretends not to mind the cold, even as her cheeks turn from rosy to bright red under the glare of neon lights. "It's just a short walk home, right?" And Spencer nods, defeated. Knowing that the other girl isn't going to take her coat back or let Spencer drape it over her shoulders, so she greedily holds onto the edges of the coat with her fingers that are starting to numb and starts walking home with her newly acquired shadow occasionally brushing up against her shoulder. Never trying to break the spell of the night with pointless conversation. Spencer finally understands what she meant when she had told her all those years before that she didn't do flashy. The other girl doesn't need to fill up silences with unnecessary words like her other friends sometimes did, it had bothered Spencer sometimes, how they couldn't appreciate the absence of sound. Hanna was notorious for doing this, for filling up every single space with music or conversation because she hated the quiet, because it was too much of a threat. But the other girl seems perfectly comfortable staying quiet, walking home in the dark, so Spencer doesn't pick up her pace. She just steals glances at the other girl, whose arms are a map of goose bumps, but the other girl doesn't complain or look at Spencer with worry every couple of seconds, the way the others did. She doesn't hover, even though she's always there. It's hard to explain why her presence doesn't get on her nerves the way it should. Maybe it's because the other girl treats her eccentricities as if they were perfectly normal. As if it were a regular thing, this routine of theirs, of Spencer going to the same hole in the wall place for a couple of bedtime drinks and the other girl just showing up uninvited to walk her home. Even if Spencer was perfectly capable of getting there on her own, the other girl still showed up, ever since Spencer called her out of the blue with a broken heel and from an unfamiliar phone. The only thing that feels out of the ordinary during their nights together is the occasional car that scrapes the top of the hill because they're driving too fast and gravity sometimes wins.

They walk for a couple more minutes, up and down the winding path that leads from the only other place she's ever visited in this city to her doorstep. When they finish climbing up the small flight of steps that leads to the red door of her place she's reluctant to break the perfect silence that blankets them, but she does it anyway as she takes the other coat off of her shoulders and drapes it over its proper owner. "Thanks." Spencer says with a mixture of habit and gratitude towards that kind action. Another one in the endless string of unseen things that makes her feel ungrateful for having a friend like her. "My pleasure." The other girl answers just as genuinely as the first time Spencer ever thanked her, on a train ride, when they were both so far removed from the people they turned out to be. When the future was a bright unknown instead of this tarnished reality. And in that moment, that should have been routine, something twists inside her chest, something just as painful as the realization that Toby was part of the A team. That the boy she loved and tried to protect was the very same one that was slowly destroying them, the reason why she had nightmares. She doesn't know what makes tonight so special, why she has to notice it now but she can finally see why Emily fell in love with Paige and it hurts because this isn't the sort of thing that happens in some darkened doorstep, to the echo of flickering streetlights. It's supposed to happen out in the open, not in the middle of the night, not with someone that can't be hers. But her life wasn't anything like she expected it, so it should come as no surprise that it happens as unceremoniously as this. And she sees it now, all the things she hadn't let herself see and she almost wants to cry in desperation because she had been too blind to see something that was right in front of her again, something that shouldn't have been a puzzle for her to solve and yet she had struggled with that knowledge all along.

It makes Spencer hate herself because now that she knows; there is no way to wipe it from her memory. She can't unlearn this; there is no way to erase this epiphany from her mind. She hates the way Paige's eyes are so open and trusting because she's the one that's supposed to have lucky pretty eyes and instead she feels as if she cheated Louie out of falling for the right pair of brown eyes. Paige has these soulful and expressive eyes that she can't help but want to look at. "You okay?" Paige asks her, concern lacing her voice and clouding her features as she unconsciously leans closer, even if there is no noise that needs to be drowned out. The streets are empty and her street is always quiet. Her neighbors are older natives that are too stubborn to die and too distrustful of her youth to be friendly towards her. It makes Spencer uncomfortable, holding Paige's undivided attention this way, she feels undeserving. Even though it's not the first time Paige has looked at her like this, it's different because it is the first time Paige has looked at her after her realization and it takes on a whole new meaning. And now, that Spencer is truly paying attention to the other girl, with the alcohol in her system and the night closing in around them and the biting cold making everything uncomfortable… it all fell together and she hates the word irony because it's not a good enough descriptor for the terrible ways that life has tried to floor her with the unexpected.

"What?" Spencer asks, confused for a second before the question flashes in her mind. "No. Yeah." She laughs at her own inability to convey an appropriate response to Paige. To the situation she suddenly finds herself in. Paige nods but doesn't move away or button up her coat; she just stares at her through narrowed eyes, trying to read her. Before the other girl can suss her out, Spencer shoves her hands in her pockets, fishing for her keys. When she pulls them out they slip from her hand and she wants to curse at her fumbling hands but she's too worn out by the realization and the alcohol to care, so she just bends down to retrieve them. Paige mirrors her movements and reaches out for them before Spencer can grab a hold of them. Paige grabs her hand, turns it over and gently places the keys inside of it before closing Spencer's fingers around them. Giving her half a smile. It's a small act of kindness, one she has extended to her a million times before but this time, Spencer nods and before she can worry about the consequences she acts. Spencer has to know and she was never one to let doubts wander around aimlessly in her mind, to not do something because it might be the wrong thing because if a Hastings has a shot she takes it and so she does. Spencer presses her lips against Paige's and it's not like anything she expected. Paige's lips are cold and chapped from the weather and Paige doesn't kiss her back, but she also doesn't push her away. She just lets herself be kissed until Spencer's legs hurt too much from the way she's crouching and unmoving so she pulls away and opens her eyes. Paige's face is obscured by shadows and because Spencer can't see her eyes, it feels as if for the first time since they became sort of friends, that she can't see the other girl's emotions. If it were any other night, she would care enough to ask, but the alcohol that's sloshing in her stomach finally made its way through her system and she feels relaxed enough to fall asleep. It's her cue to stand up and get to bed before her window of opportunity vanishes and she has to stay up all night, trying to keep the monsters at bay on her own. She opens the front door and goes inside on unsteady legs, concentrating very hard on walking because it feels like she drank too much even if the amount remained the same as the last time and the time before that.

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**Author's Note:** blame _admiralridic_ for this fic. She not so subtly hinted that a Paily/McHastings love triangle might be interesting to explore and this is the end result.

Also, the title of this might change to something better... suggestions are always welcome for that because I am terrible at coming up with good titles.


	2. The Stones

The leaky faucet lets water drip down to an overflowing dirty cup in the sink. Everybody else in the living room is asleep, making her feel as if she's the only person in the world that can hear the constant plopping sound the heavy drops make as they drip down, causing water to spill over the cup and down the drain in the sink that her dad never managed to repair after her nana died. Years of endless trips after that winter made her dread nights in the cabin because she could hear the faucet leak through the walls of the bedroom she shared with her sister. She didn't know how her family could just tune it out, how the girls could sleep through it, when it was so deafening. She stood up and instantly shivered. It wasn't cold, it was just the opposite, the cabin was sweltering. This was the reason why they were all sleeping in the living room with the windows open. It was the first night in years that her small group of friends felt safe enough to let their guard down, safe enough to sleep without all the doors barred, the windows locked and the alarms ready to go off in case of any strange noises outside of their rooms. It was the first night they in a long time that they felt they could breathe without A's shadow looming over them, watching their every move, learning their every secret just so it could use it as leverage to turn them into A's puppets. To turn them against each other just to save themselves.

It's funny how she never thought she had much to hide before A came into the picture. Then every little thing she did became tinged with lies. It had started innocent, at first. Little innocuous things that would have gone unnoticed, but it just kept escalating until moments that were meant to be private could potentially be exposed and everything after that just felt out of control. Their lives stopped being their own. They were at the mercy of an anonymous force that was relentless. A kept taking more and more from them until they were left with nothing. Their parents questioned them, their friends began second guessing them and slowly the circle of people that still believed them began dwindling down until one by one the whole town fell away behind an imaginary line that separated the unbelievers from the liars. It was funny how the line disappeared once the whole A team was rounded up. How the citizens of Rosewood showed up to the arrest not just to witness the downfall of their tormentors but to make sure that they remained silenced forever. It turns out that the dirty looks and dirty remarks they received were born out of fear, not ignorance or denial. It seemed that A had its finger on the trigger of a gun that could point to everyone in town, one way or another. And people, powerful people, wanted to make sure that the dirt they were covered in would never be traced to their backyards. That their sins would remain buried, unlike Alison's body.

It had been too much for her. That night she had to stand in front of the flashing lights as she looked on as Toby struggled against his captors. The black hoodie did a poor job of concealing his identity from her. She knew every inch of his body. Had memorized the stories upon his skin, the tattoos and the scars he hid from everyone else but her. She doesn't remember anything else besides her friends holding on to her, the grief overtook her and she lost a week. Or maybe it was a month. She doesn't really remember anything other than the fact that she had been so far removed from the truth that it physically hurt her. It ached to realize that she had never really seen Toby. She had looked at him countless times, could sculpt him out of clay if she had the talent for such things, but she had never really seen him until that night. He was like a wild and feral animal being dragged away to be held captive in the depths of a Rosewood jail cell but he was much more than that and it scared her, being so blind until the night she was forced to really open her eyes and see everything in front of her.

One of the girls moves in her sleep and she shakes her head, trying to crash back down into reality from where she was because she's been doing that a lot lately, getting lost in her head. She takes a deep breath and takes a mental inventory of her friends, a habit none of them have been able to break, even when people around reassure them that they're safe. Hanna is on the longest couch, her limbs are sprawled out in every direction and her hair is sticking to her face. Even in sleep her lips are pouting, as if she were begging her mother for money to buy a new purse. Aria is curled up on the love seat in the most uncomfortable looking position; she's so tiny that she barely takes up half the couch, leaving space for someone else to sit down next to her. And on the floor, Emily is half-lying on top of Paige. Even in this heat, she's clinging onto Paige so tightly that Paige's wife beater rides up to reveal sweat pooling on top of her skin. But she's not pushing Emily away because she understands, even in sleep, that Emily is still afraid that she could disappear. She can taste bile in the back of her throat, jealousy rising because she had that once. Her face contorts into an angry scowl and the water continues dripping down in the background. This is all too much. She takes a shallow breath, followed by another and then the urge to run away kicks in, so she slips outside to get some fresh air. She needs to clear her head.

Even with the stars out, it's hard to see much in the darkness, she has to navigate through touch and memory. She makes it to the front of the lake house and tries to take in as much air as her lungs can bear before they feel like they will collapse from the effort. She wonders how long she has had this suffocating feeling stuck to the back of her throat, stopping her from truly breathing. Maybe it was way before sophomore year, when A first came into their lives because A can't always be the root of all evil when she has been so unhappy for what feel like most of her life. But lately this feeling is compounded by the knowledge that her life wasn't everything that she had hoped for. She foolishly thought that if she dug deep enough, if she sought the answers until all doubts were cleared from her mind that everything would return to normal. For some reason she stupidly held onto the belief that the truth held mystical powers. Even while everything started slipping from her grasp, the idea that the truth would tip the scales back to the start kept her fighting. It helped her push back when she felt that she had nothing left to give. And now she was empty. All the anger that helped her along the way, the fierce determination, the joy she felt by having her friendship with the girls intact, it had slowly been chipped away and now she was just tired.

Her sleeve greedily soaks up the tears that streaked her cheeks. She wipes away at her face and stares out into the lake. The stars are glimmering on top of the water, like diamonds lost at sea, waiting for her to touch them and she feels a flicker of happiness. She smiles through her tears because regardless of where she is in her life, the lake always makes her feel closer to that innocent little girl that couldn't wait for the weekends to come because it meant she got to visit her nana here. At first it was just her summer home. However, after her grandpa died of an aneurism she refused to go back into town. She said that Rosewood was too full of ghosts and she would rather spend the rest of her days in a place that made her happy than one that kept her trapped in the past. As a little girl she didn't understand what that meant, but today it made perfect sense, that feeling of wanting to leave all those ghosts behind, before they shackled her permanently to a town that would take everything from her. The way it already had. The moon peeked from beneath the clouds, lighting up the woods that once held monsters made of flesh and bone and she stood up, she was ready to go back home.

At first she only dips her toes, testing the water, after feeling how cool it was against her warm skin, she decided to press on with a tentative step, followed by another. Careful not to slip on the moss covered stones. As the water reaches above her ankles she remembers days of summer long gone, when the only way to drag her out of that lake was when her body was too exhausted to keep on swimming. The days blended into nights and still she would be outside, swimming alone, floating on her back and staring up into the sky. She smiles softly to herself as she remembers the hours she spent looking for the perfect skipping stone. She crouches down and feels the smoothness of the stones beneath her; she grabs one and inspects it under the moonlight before she puts it in her pocket. She keeps filling her pocket with stones, realizing that there are too many perfect specimens for her collection. For her to throw over the water so they can glide unobstructed until they drop under the ripples. As she keeps wading in and searching for just the right stones, a chill runs up her spine and she pauses, suddenly aware of how exposed she is. It makes her hesitate for a moment. Long enough for her to have to remind herself that there should be nothing to fear, not anymore, there is nothing left. There is no one out here watching her. She will be fine. So she pushes that uneasy feeling deep down inside of herself as she lets her body go forward, deeper and deeper until her clothes are soaked through and her feet are barely touching the bottom. She keeps reminding herself that it was going to be okay, that it didn't matter how wet her clothes got or how heavy her arms felt, that she was fine, so she pushed on further still. And then she drowned.

The thing about drowning that the movies didn't show her is that it's a whole lot more peaceful than it should be. She didn't splash around dramatically as she screamed for help until someone saved her. Drowning is silent. It's so quiet that even the crickets didn't pause their incessant chirping to listen to her be swallowed up by the water. Her friends didn't rush out of the cabin because they only heard the night outside their windows. Nothing was amiss, even from 10 feet away. If they had gotten up for a glass of water and looked outside the kitchen window, they would have seen her die but not heard her cry out for help. They would have thought she was fine because drowning never looks like death. It looks like a baptism, like she was being reborn as her head bobbed up and down the water. Her mouth was barely above the surface, taking big gulps of air until it's mostly just water, until it fills her up and she peacefully goes under. She doesn't fight the grip of death upon her soul; she welcomes it, like an old friend. And instead of understanding that she's dying, she feels as if she's about to take an afternoon nap on top of the weather-beaten raft that would occasionally fill her fingertips with splintered wood. She welcomes the calm after being so utterly exhausted because she had been fighting for her life for so long.

It was Paige, who noticed something was wrong. The heat was suffocating her, making it harder and harder to breathe until she woke up. She looked over the sleeping form of her girlfriend and smiled. Even if it was hot she would rather pass out from dehydration than miss an opportunity to feel Emily's skin against her own. She wiggled out from beneath Emily's death grip, careful not to wake her girlfriend up and got up to use the bathroom. She peeked over the open front door and was about to ask whomever was awake if it was okay to close it as a precaution against animals wandering inside when she noticed that Spencer wasn't sleeping. The hair on the base of her neck stood on end because it was uncharacteristically quiet and Spencer had a way of always taking up a lot of space, even when she wasn't doing anything other than reading. Something big was happening and she ran out the front door. She didn't even think of putting on her shoes or waking up the other girls, her feet simply carried her over dirt and sticks as she impulsively ran towards the dock. That was when she saw how Spencer's glassy stare took in the moon one last time before she went under. In an act of desperation she threw herself into the water without actually clearing the dock, scratching her pale skin against the rough surface as she fell into the water but she didn't care, she swam forward even as she felt the deep cuts bleed into the blue. She easily sliced through the water, even with her pajamas weighing her down, until she managed to reach Spencer's body. It was limp, like a noodle and heavy, like a sack of flour, but the water helped her carry Spencer's lifeless body closer to shore. She was too scared to shout out for help. So she clutched her body and dragged her further away from the water. Spencer doesn't remember being saved. She doesn't remember breathing again. She only remembers the panic before death washed over her like clear blue water that tasted like childhood memories and burned her lungs.

Spencer thinks that a part of her is still drowning on that sweltering night. A part that Paige couldn't save.

Paige breathed life into her mouth, asking her to come back. Spencer threw water up just as the situation caught up with Paige and she pissed all over herself, both relieved and afraid. Spencer didn't mirror her relief, she felt surprisingly calm and disappointed. She wondered how many more times Paige would show up just in the nick of time before her luck ran out because miracles aren't like lightning, they don't strike the same place twice, but they seemed to be attracted to her body as if it were made out of metal. Spencer stared up at the sky as clouds covered the moon up again wondering if Paige made a mistake by continually saving a girl that couldn't even stand to look at her without feeling revolted by everything she represented. Had it been the other way around, Paige would have surely been added to the list of girls that Emily's love managed to ensnare until it drained the life right out of them because she doesn't know if she would have jumped into the water without thinking of the consequences. She closed her eyes and breathed in. She didn't believe in god but it felt appropriate to pray to something to rectify their mistake, to fill her up with water once again so she can feel something besides this aching emptiness that was too heavy for her body. But nothing happened. And she let her body relax because she didn't expect any less but she still had to exhaust all her options.

Spencer let her head drop to the side and opened her eyes once again. She frowned because Paige was hugging herself and her shoulders were shaking as if she were cold but she couldn't understand why because even with her clothes clinging to her frame, heavy with water, she still felt warm. When she heard Paige sniffle she understood and painfully closed her eyes. She didn't want that image imprinted upon her mind. The one of a crying Paige because all her life she had known Paige to be strong, to be the girl that could take five stitches without anesthesia after catching a field hockey stick hit her right between the eyes and not shed a single tear. She looked more pissed off at being forced to sit the rest of the game out because her wound kept reopening rather than sorry for herself. After that day they named a penalty after her because she had gone back into the field specifically to repay the favor to the girl in the opposing team. They had to retire number 23 because all the blood never did manage to wash out of that shirt. Spencer wanted to choose any other memory of Paige but this one, except her life wasn't a movie and she couldn't erase the painful bits as easily as she would have liked.

She sat up and instantly winced in pain because her ribs ached with every new breath she took. Paige's shoulders tensed as she waited for Spencer to speak up but the other girl didn't say a word so she rested her chin on top of her knees and stared into the water, even if she couldn't see anything in the night, she looked forward anyway. She didn't want Spencer to see her cry, ever since she was little and her dad had acted disgusted by her crying she learned to be weak only when she was truly alone except she couldn't help herself in this moment. It was so overwhelming, seeing Spencer Hastings nearly drown and then not bat an eyelash over it. "What were you thinking?" Paige's voice is so raw that it hurts Spencer's ears just listening to it. "I don't know." She answers honestly for once. The truth doesn't make her feel free, it confuses her because she honestly doesn't remember what she was thinking, she was just pushing forward, like she always did when she doubted herself. Paige's wrists come up to her eyes and cheeks and wipe away the tears that won't stop coming. "Were you trying to kill yourself?" Spencer shrugs because she honestly doesn't think she was but now she's not so sure because with her pockets full of stones and her tired bones it seems like it was the only thing she could have been doing out here by herself. "No. I don't think so." Paige laughs low and close to her chest but it's without humor. "Then what the fuck were you doing out here besides playing at being Virginia Woolf?" She says, anger failing to tint her voice. Instead it sounds as exhausted as Spencer feels. "I don't know." She shrugs, trying to recall the events that led up to this moment. "I remember that I couldn't sleep. I guess I must have come outside to cool down but I really don't remember when or how… I… I just remember that the water called out to me and all of a sudden I couldn't keep my eyes open and then you breathed for me…" She closes her eyes and frowns, leaning forward until her forehead is resting against Paige's back. "I didn't want it to be so dark anymore." Is all she remembers saying before falling asleep again.

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**Author's Note:** Thanks for the encouragement on this super bleak fic. I hope you still want to read the next chapter after this.


	3. The Night

She woke up when the alcohol wore off. Her skin was clammy even though she didn't remember to turn the heat on before she passed out last night. She had been concentrating so hard on not letting the world slip under her feet as she made her way upstairs that it didn't cross her mind when she let herself succumb to the familiar numbness of her dreamless nights. She rubbed her eyes and climbed under the covers, looking up at the ceiling. Her eyes strained to adjust to the darkness, trying to make out the edges of the yellow water stain above her bed. She could recall its outline and the different shapes she always seemed to find in it. The stain was actually the reason she bought the house. She was unsure about it at the beginning. Her mother hadn't been though; she had loved everything about it. The house was flawless and yet there was something that put her off. Maybe it was how beautifully restored it was. It made it anonymous. It turned it fake. It could be anyone else's house… their opinion changed, however, when they got to the master bedroom. There was one spot that the owners forgot to paint over before the showing. It marred the perfect image her mother had built up in her head for Spencer's new life, so she rejected the house instantly, even if she had loved it all up to that point. The stain had an opposite effect on her. For some reason that stain made her want to cling onto it. Not because her mother was opposed to it now, it was something more. And so, as her dad and the realtor walked away from the room, leaving them alone, it happened.

They fought over it.

It was petty.

It was stupid.

It was familiar.

She thinks that in the end that was the only reason why her mom gave in. They both knew that there were other houses in the city. But only one of them understood that there was something about that imperfection that made this one special. It automatically endeared Spencer to this unknown place. That attachment to a stain was the most she had felt in months. This stupid need to possess a whole house because of one tiny detail made her feel present in a way she hadn't been in so long. She was reluctant to be separated from the one spot that rooted her outside of the fog she was constantly in. Just thinking about it made her heart race. When she heard the no she reverted to the petulant and stubborn girl that refused to back down from a fight. For a second or two they stared at each other. And then, in a flash, that fight was gone from Spencer. Her shoulders dropped and she gripped the doorframe, completely deflating, the effort made her feel faint and she was exhausted. She put her hands over her eyes, rubbing them with the tips of her fingers. Spencer opened her mouth to tell her mother to just forget the whole thing. That she didn't care about the house, about the stain, about the city… about anything. Before she could say it out loud, how defeated she was, her mother interrupted her with a rushed yes.

She nodded and opened her eyes. Not even acknowledging what a huge victory this had been, how easily it had come to her when everything before had always been a constant struggle. The mother that raised her would have made her crawl through glass for a maybe, and even then, all that begging might still be useless in the end. The woman staring in front of her was a stranger. She wondered what made her notice it now when it had probably been there for so long. If she wasn't too tired to decipher everything that it could mean, she would have made a thousand lists until she was certain about everything once again. Until she proved to herself that they were the same people they had always been. But she just wanted to go back to the hotel so she could sleep the rest of the day away. It was exhausting to want things again, to see things that hadn't been there before, to notice the world around her and these couple of minutes of being so hyperaware of everything had worn her out completely. She didn't know how she had lived before where everything was so important to her. When she felt it all with such intensity that even colors were brighter.

"I'm tired. Can we leave now?" Her mother nodded as her eyes became glassy. She blinked back the tears, swallowing and trying to regain her composure. She wanted to reach out and touch her daughter, to just hug her, but she held back, staying in place because they had never been that kind of family and it was only now that she regretted the giant rift between them. Even while she was standing right in front of her she was so far away that it scared her. Spencer sighed, adding the weight of her mother's concern to the equation made her want to flinch back. To hide. But she was drained and that made her stop worrying over so many things because she just didn't have room in herself to care anymore. Even if she felt empty half the time.

When her dad came in looking for them she walked out. She needed to be somewhere else, where her mother's sad eyes didn't follow her around the room. Where her father's anger didn't threaten to spill over.

They came out after a while. She doesn't know how long they stood in there, arguing over the house when they really wanted to argue about her. Her mother's eyes were puffy and bloodshot and her dad looked haggard, even while dressed immaculately. She wanted to feel guilty, to be proud of herself, to be angry… but she just motioned at her dad to unlock the car doors. She slid inside and fell asleep. She woke up in the middle of the night in her hotel bed. She should have been embarrassed by this. That her dad had to carry her through the lobby and up the elevator until he set her down on the bed, tucking her in like she was a child. How everyone would have seen them, thought she was drunk or sick. But right in that moment she couldn't think why it should be important. So she let it slip away.

The next day her mom tried to ask their opinion on how they should change their itinerary. They had found a house sooner than expected and because it was a short sale where they had generously overbid they were sure they would get the house Spencer wanted. Now they had to decide on what to do, if they were going to have either a lot of free time here or flights to change. Her mother said that it would be nice to explore the city together, to get Spencer settled in before she had to move. Maybe map a route to campus, get new appliances picked out for the house or just go sightseeing. Her mother wanted to make sure they were all on board. It was the first time she didn't spew out orders. Her dad clenched his fists and Spencer thought he would tell her that it was useless, exploring the city wouldn't erase what had happened, and it definitely wouldn't make them a family again. Or into the family they never were but strived to appear as in front of the whole town of Rosewood. But he didn't have it in him to say the truth. Lately he didn't have the heart for a lot of things. Spencer told her plate of untouched fruit that she wanted to stay here. A strangled noise escaped from her mother's throat and she quickly got up to call the concierge before Spencer could finish saying that she wanted to stay in this city because she couldn't go back to Rosewood. There was nothing there for her anymore. Just like here. Except… in this new city she could pretend that everything was fine, just like her family had done all her life. Problems didn't exist if you didn't acknowledge them. And she didn't want to have to walk by every single spot that helped unravel her bit by bit. She didn't want to face every single person that made her life harder by either pretending not to believe them or by actively working against them. People like Mona…or Toby.

This made her sigh. She didn't want to revisit those feelings again so she thought about how their week together, playing at being happy wasn't what her mother wanted but it was all she could get. They didn't take a single picture. They didn't exchange more than three words for hours on end. And for once she didn't complain about every little thing that would have set her off before. But it probably still bothered her. Her mother's eyes were constantly bloodshot and raw. Her father looked less like her daddy and more like the worn out version of the super hero she had worshiped once upon a time. Spencer spent most of it sleeping in the hotel, leaning against her parents for support or sleeping in the car.

She didn't even notice when they left or how long they were gone for. Time just happened around her. It was as if one day they were there, the next they weren't and the day after that Paige walked through her hotel room and shook her awake. "Come on Spence, we need to get you home." It didn't even faze her that Paige had shown up. She had just nodded, turned over and fell back asleep again. When she came to again it was dark and she heard hushed arguing coming from the bathroom. She tried to eavesdrop but the noise of quiet anger moving back and forth like the ocean lulled her back to sleep.

The following morning Paige checked them out of the hotel and drove them to her new house. Emily was too upset to give Spencer the pitying looks she always seemed to shower her with lately. She wanted to know where her parents where. Why Hanna and Aria weren't here when it seemed to be a group thing, settling her into her new place. She wanted to ask what was wrong. She wanted to make sure her friend was safe. She wished she could muster enough anger to threaten Paige, to make her stop hurting Emily again. What actually came out of her lips was: "I'm going to bed."

She didn't even notice that her old life had been packed up and rearranged here… for the most part at least. She just needed to get some more sleep…

It was the last time she remembered being able to sleep peacefully without her nightly ritual of dirty glasses filled with too much sugary cola and bottom shelf whiskey to help her through the restlessness she felt. It helped to quiet down all the doubts in her head. The constant thinking that for so long made her want to seek out answers. To solve pieces of the puzzle, one after the other, always going after the next one without stopping to think about the bigger picture, without fully understanding what they held in their hands because it could all be taken away. That some things _might be_ better left as giant unknowns. As questions instead of answers. Sometimes she hated herself because she was the one out of the four of them that couldn't leave any stone unturned. That refused to leave things well alone when they were given an out. The others had tried to let A win, to give up, to just let this be another terrible thing they had to endure during high school and once they left Rosewood they would be able to move on. Spencer wasn't like that though. She couldn't just see something; enjoy it; love it; be enthralled by it… without truly understanding it. She wanted to rip it apart; to know it all; piece by piece. And only after all that, could she appreciate it.

Until now… when she realized that there was a reason why people were meant to have secrets.

Hindsight showed her that she was actually happier when she thought she was miserable. She should have stayed in the dark, when she was constantly given clues but never any real answers. Now the truth, the extent of it all weighed heavy on her mind and it didn't let her sleep because she just replayed every moment, every meeting, every touch, trying to find out how she could have been so wrong about the one thing that actually mattered. About the one person she thought she could trust.

It wore her out.

She shivered and pulled the covers over her head, letting her breath make her face feel damp. She was tired but she couldn't go back to sleep. She wonders how she could have missed so many things. All those little inconsistencies that before she would have never let slip by her… had it been anybody else… but it hadn't been. She guesses that it went unnoticed for so long because she had no reason to disbelief anything Toby was saying. She sighed, took a deep breath in and slowly let it out through her nose. He was supposed to be _the one_. He was supposed to _love_ her. He wasn't supposed to be part of the A team. _It should have been_ _Paige_… but it hadn't been. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. She felt horrible at having actually said that in her head. Thinking it was just as bad or maybe worse than actually believing it. She was afraid that they were the same.

Especially because Paige had moved to California so she could take care of her…

The other girl insisted that her university had the best swimming program in the country but she knew it wasn't the whole truth. It probably wasn't even half of it.

She grit her teeth to choke down a sob. She wishes she could remember the bits of conversations between Emily and Paige that penetrated the walls of her room. But she was too busy taking them for granted. Thinking they would always be there. So she exhausted herself by tossing and turning. She ignored Emily's knocks on her door because she just wanted to go back to sleep. She didn't want to be awake anymore because that meant she would analyze every little thing she had missed. She wouldn't be able to shut off her brain from thinking about the whole thing. Trying to figure it all out once again. She wanted to go back to sleep so she could escape the feeling of still being tortured by Toby even though he was locked up with a whole country between them. She had put as much distance as she could between Rosewood and herself but that still didn't make all of this hurt any less. It didn't make it go away. She wanted it to be a bad dream so she didn't pay any attention to all their arguments. To their shouting. To the hurtful words Emily threw in Paige's face. To their fucking. To the moans she heard coming from the room across the hall when it was night and they thought she was asleep. To the crying. To their easy laughter coming from the kitchen. To the slamming doors. To the anger that wore down to resignation in Emily's voice. To the way Paige never stopped telling Emily that she loved her like it was the last time she would be able to hold her in her arms. Her throat seized up when she remembered this because she hadn't understood why the air around them felt so tense until the day Emily went off to college in Pennsylvania, leaving Paige behind in California. That was the day she finally came out of her room.

When all she had left was Paige.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Aww yisss, wrote this instead of working on my thesis… so enjoy the fruits of my procrastinational labor.


	4. The Beginning

She opened her eyes after a couple of minutes. Except it wasn't a couple of minutes. It was longer. The sun was beginning to lighten the sky around them whereas before the moon was covered by clouds and all she could see was darkness all around her. She had made her way to the edge of the lake through the guidance of her memories telling her where things used to be and where she should go next. Now that things were no longer hidden away she could see how wrong she had been about where everything stood. She wonders what else she missed while trying to see things from memory and the cover of night instead of with the help of some sort of light source. She took a deep breath but it didn't clear her head. She began tracing the lines on Paige's wife beater, following the simple motions that her index finger made with her eyes. Up and down. Up and down. Down and up. Down and up and back again until all she could think of was how much she liked the way Paige was warm and solid against her. She rests her palm against Paige's back. She wonders what last night meant. If Ali drowned just the same way she had. Without meaning to fill her lungs with dirt. If she had just woken up from a bad dream and decided it was a nice night for a walk and then just let her feet take her forward until there was no turning back. If her gypsy heart had guided her straight into the grave. If everything that night twisted from a dream into a nightmare and suddenly Spencer questions whether she really meant to disappear under the water, the same way Ali disappeared beneath the ground that night. It already feels like her mistakes were made ages ago instead of within a couple of hours. People drown all the time. They get buried alive under layers and layers of water. She had died and come back to life and yet nothing had changed. Not even her. She scratches her nose and yawns. She can't think with all these questions inside of her. But at least there's something that's finally louder than the leaky faucet in the kitchen sink. She doesn't know which is worse, the perpetual noise of the water going down the drain or the things she will find once her head clears up from all of this.

The sun creeps through the horizon and Paige doesn't move. She barely breathes. "Do you want to go inside?" She asks because even though the other girl is still, Spencer knows that she's not asleep. Paige shrugs and she feels it against her whole body. She smiles, even though that's not an answer. "Is that a yes?" She asks. Paige sighs as she looks at the sun, dancing on top of the lake. It makes her eyes hurt but she doesn't look away. She looks straight ahead, willing herself not to wince against the brightness. "Only if you're ready." She answers and her voice sounds just as tired as before. Maybe she stayed up while Spencer slept. Maybe she too forgot how to dream after A started coming after them even in sleep. Spencer doesn't answer right away because to be honest, she doesn't really care. Half her body is numb from not moving for hours on end. She can feel tiny prickles against the inside of her skin. Instead of thinking about how good it will feel to get circulation back she closes her eyes and pretends that they're out here by choice and not by accident. That they slept under the stars as a spontaneous thing and now they're going to watch the sunrise together for that same reason. It wasn't a calculated risk, it wasn't on a list, it hadn't been pre-approved, it had just happened. "Sure." She says out loud, opening her eyes to reality once again because her family always frowned on daydreaming and wasting the day away on wishes instead of actions that achieved results.

Paige nods and gets up, offering Spencer her hand. She takes it and Paige easily lifts her up on her feet. She's lighter than she's been in years. Even with the stones weighing her down. Paige doesn't let go of her hand; she simply guides her to the edge of the lake, until the water is well past their ankles. She thinks that Paige is going to scream at her, tell her to explain what she was really trying to accomplish yesterday. To show her what drowning really looks like, anything to break the silence between them. Instead, the other girl silently reaches into her pockets and starts throwing the stones into the lake like they're baseballs. Plop. Plop. Plop. The sound they make is louder than the sink in the middle of the night, waking her from sleep. She wonders why the whole world isn't awakened by their vulgar splashing. How they're not drowning by the waves the stones make. This is nothing like the way she used to skip stones and yet she doesn't want to stop Paige because the other girl is too busy looking at the way they disappear beneath the surface like it means something. Like that tells her everything she needs to know.

Soon enough Paige runs out of stones to throw but she's still breathing hard and without any rhythm, in long and short spurts that don't make sense. Spencer takes a tentative step forward, until she can look at Paige's face instead of her back and she realizes that Paige is crying again. It's so quiet that she wonders if it can even be called crying when no one else can hear you. When they can't feel it the way you do. Whatever is hurting you. She lifts her fingers to Paige's wet cheeks because she has to know if this is real. Everything still feels like a dream. Even the water isn't as cool and refreshing as she remembered it last night. Paige tries to turn away but this only makes her hold Paige's face with both of her hands. Turning her body so she's right in front of her. So Paige can't run away. "Spencer…" The way Paige says her name, with that low, almost whispery voice that is vulnerable and full of doubt is her undoing. Before, she would have been satisfied with going back inside that very second. To pretend that none of this ever happened. That's how her parents raised her.

You didn't deal with certain things; you simply stopped talking about them because it was messy to go about working through them. If you ignored them long enough, they would simply cease to exist. So they protected her from those ugly, weak things called feeling. That is, unless there were tied up with gloating for being better than everyone else. She wasn't even sure if that was an actual feeling or not but that was all that she was allowed to express. Anger, disappointment, sadness… those were things that didn't exist in the Hastings household unless they were directed towards her. Her parents were allowed to experience those things. She was only allowed to be a winner. Nothing else mattered but winning and proving that she was worthy of their last name. Her sister Melissa constantly outshone her peers and soon the pressure fell upon her. She had to be just like her. And then that wasn't enough. She had to keep working harder and harder just to be noticed because she was just another Hastings and not a person in her own right. She was relegated to being Melissa Hastings' little sister. The nerdy one with the glasses that wanted things too much. That tried too hard to be liked and admired. She wasn't memorable. She wasn't a whole force to be reckoned with. She simply existed as an extension to her whole family. And then her parents stopped being impressed with what Melissa would have given them because they thought that Spencer should be more than just Melissa's shadow. She should stand out on her own. While at the same time they told her that it was unbecoming for a young lady to talk about petty things like winning awards and medals when they had previously encouraged her over these same things. It was confusing. It was devastating.

So she learned to bury things. To want things in secret, when the rest of the world was asleep and she was free to dream about them. To figure out her desires out on her own. And even then, it had overwhelmed her because she realized that learning about facts and learning about people were two different ends of the spectrum. And right now she really wanted to learn about Paige McCullers. The girl that closed her eyes to the world because she understood that crying was weakness and weakness was always punished just the same as failure. They were synonyms and only other kids were allowed to cry. They had to be stronger than them. Stronger than everyone else. It's what they were raised with. It's what they knew. Spencer smoothed away Paige's tears against slick skin until they evaporated. And then she looked closer at the other girl. She frowned because she had actually never noticed before how Paige was just a couple of inches shorter than she was. She always saw Paige as being stronger than her… taller for some reason. And now… it was weird seeing her like this because it was a Paige she wasn't familiar with. She stepped closer and slowly traced Paige's face with her fingertips because she liked knowing things. Still Paige didn't open her eyes but her breathing had becomes more erratic and shallow. Like she had trouble breathing. Spencer stepped closer and closer until there was nowhere else to go. She stared at Paige and nodded to herself more than to the other girl because she couldn't see her. She wanted to make sure that this was okay. Because she doesn't want to pretend anymore. She wants to figure things out. Even if they're painful. Even if they threaten to tear her apart once again. She wants to understand things. Starting with Paige. But she still refuses to open her eyes. As if looking at her hurts almost as much as drowning did. So Spencer lifts her face and kisses her because she's curious. And Spencer Hastings was never one to leave things unexplored. To stay with doubts and unknowns. She wonders if this will give her any answers.

At first it was weird, kissing Paige. Not because she was a girl but because she didn't react to her. She just stood there, completely unresponsive. It made her feel insecure because she thought that Paige would at least do something. To either reciprocate or push her away. But she does nothing. This is what it must be like to kiss sleeping girls goodbye, Spencer thought. And then, out of nowhere, Paige is kissing her back. She doesn't kiss like Toby. Full of wanting and lust. She's gripping her so tightly and kissing her so desperately that she's afraid she'll disappear once Paige lets go of her. Tears fall against her fingers and she doesn't know what to do to get Paige to stop crying because she's never kissed someone this broken before. She wonders if Paige will ever stop crying. If she'll be herself again. She doesn't want to kiss Paige anymore. It's confusing to kiss someone like this. It's overwhelming. Her hands leave Paige's face and they travel down her chest until her right hand comes into contact with something sticky and wet on her shirt. She presses her fingers against it and stops kissing her for a moment. Spencer pushes harder on the same spot and Paige finally breaks the kiss, breathing hard and looking angry, lost, and confused. Spencer looks at her fingers. They're covered in blood.

Suddenly she remembers the moments before drowning. How comforting it was to be in the water, its warm embrace, telling her that she was safe, that she was finally home. Of swimming out here until the loneliness she brought from her school days leached from her bones and into the lake, until she was completely happy again and carefree. She didn't remember the dying. The pain before passing into that great oblivion that held her grandparents. Alison. All the people that died at the hands of A. She doesn't remember fighting, she just gave in and that scares her more than anything else. So she stares at the blood and wonders if Paige remembers what it feels like to drown because she doesn't. At all. Just the things she was trying to outswim, the insecurity and the doubts. But not the actual part where she died. She remembers the pain of waking up still alive. Of realizing that she was disappointed at that. More disappointed than finding out she died and was brought back to life again. She remembers all these things but she doesn't remember seeing Paige bleeding. The other girl hadn't said a word all night. She had just sat there and let her sleep on her without saying that it hurt to be crouched down. To have that kind of pressure on her. So she had just slept on without a care in the world because she had the luxury to rest her eyes and sleep once again. She looks up at Paige, wondering who would just sit there and let themselves bleed just to comfort someone else and she realizes that she doesn't know the other girl at all. Only her name. She knows that she cries when she kisses her. That she's an amazing swimmer… but other than that. She's a mystery. Spencer doesn't even know her favorite color. She looks up at Paige and the other girl just shakes her head as she wipes at her tears until her cheeks are red. She opens her mouth but their names being screamed at by their friends stops her.

She looks over at the house and sees Emily and Aria looking absolutely horrified with Hanna trying to get a signal on her phone. Spencer raises her arm and waves at them. But they don't see her, so she shouts and waves again. She can see the relief they feel in the way their bodies instantly relax. They all run towards the edge of the water and stop cold when they see them because every member of the A team is either locked up or dead. They thought the danger was over. Spencer doesn't know how to explain what happened because even she doesn't understand it. Emily starts crying and runs to Paige, not bothering to take her shoes and socks off. She gingerly reaches for the edge of Paige's shirt and just cries as she says Paige's name over and over, lifting the material off of her skin. There's dried and caked on blood along with still bleeding, raw looking cuts that have splinters in them, further irritating them. "Oh my god, Paige, what happened?" Emily asks as she looks between Paige's face and her wounds. Paige looks at Spencer's eyes and then back to Emily again before answering. "It was hot and I thought I could cool off before going back to sleep… but I didn't really see where the dock ended and I kind of bit it… hard…" With that sentence Paige rewrote history with a lie.

Spencer was about to correct her because the one thing they promised to do was to stop lying to each other but Emily didn't even notice her. "Come on we have to get you cleaned up so it doesn't get infected because it looks pretty nasty." Paige nodded and held onto Emily's hand. As Emily walked forward and Paige stood still she was met with resistance and stopped, staring at her girlfriend. Paige pulled her back and kissed her because she wanted to make sure that she was real. That she was alive. That she had been safe while Spencer and her were drowning outside in different ways. But drowning just the same. Emily smiled into the kiss and laughed as she broke it off. "Come on Romeo, we have to get you cleaned up. Then… if you're nice, you'll get rewarded." Paige smiled and told Emily that she loved her. Emily blushed and kissed her again, telling her that she loved her too but that this wouldn't stop her from using alcohol on her open wounds. Paige brought Emily's hand up to her lips and kissed it while looking over at Spencer. Emily rolled her eyes and dragged Paige back towards the lake house with Hanna and Aria wolf whistling after them and Hanna shouting something about no glove, no love before they disappeared through the doorway.

She watched them head inside and she turned towards the lake. Sitting down in the water and staring at the edge of the lake, wondering why she was suddenly full of red hot anger. She bites her cuticles and tries to understand why Paige never left her. Why she would chose to stay out here instead of going inside to take care of that nasty looking mess on her side. It was the most logical thing to do. Wasn't it? It's what she would have done. To do something about the way she was bleeding. To shout for help. To get the others, her actual friends to take care of her. There were a million different choices that Paige could have made. But she hadn't. She had chosen to just sit there. Was that even a choice? How can inaction be considered a choice? Would she have moved if Spencer hadn't told her that she was ready to go? She ground a bit of stubborn skin against her teeth. Trying to get it to yield to her. As if that would tell her why Paige would deliberately choose against the logical way out of this situation. Why she would risk infection to just stare into the darkness while she slept. It didn't make sense. Nothing made sense. She finally ripped the piece of skin and tasted blood against her tongue. She sucked against the pain and kept thinking about Paige McCullers.

She had forgotten that she was sitting outside until Hanna waved her fingers in front of her eyes, startling her back into reality. "Hey, earth to Spencer, what's going on with you? Did you finally try to drown Paige and she was just too nice to tell Emily the truth or something?" Aria and Hanna both laughed but Spencer frowned and didn't answer. She just kept thinking about Paige. The girl that by all means should be as logical as her but in the end hadn't been.

Not one bit.

Not at all.


	5. The Damage

She steps out of the shower and lazily dries herself off. Her skin prickles as the air hits her while she wrings her hair with the towel. Her body involuntarily shivers in the cold; however, her mind is elsewhere. She's thinking about Paige and how guilty she feels about last night. She wishes she could control those petty and selfish thoughts before they rise to the forefront of her mind. Before it's the only thing she can think about. She sighs tiredly as she goes through the motions of putting her clothes on. She cranes her neck from side to side. Her muscles ache. It was probably from being curled up all night. She has to start sleeping right again. She looks down at her hands; she doesn't want to look at herself in the mirror because her eyes will pierce right through that lie. She knows that it doesn't begin to explain why she feels more tired after waking up then before she went to bed. Regardless of how long she's slept. She doesn't want to preoccupy herself with that on top of her thoughts on Paige. She reaches for her sweater and then stops when her right arm complains with a sharp ache. A new stinging sensation that wasn't there yesterday. She thinks to herself that it was probably how she slept on her side. She hurts from that and that alone. Not from constantly trying to hold on to everything so desperately. From trying to protect the most fragile parts of herself from the outside world; even in sleep she can't afford to let anything in.

She sighs as she pulls the sweater over her head, stubbornly refusing to let this one thing slow down her routine. When she pulls her hair free she faces the sink and automatically reaches for the mirror so she can wipe the steam from it, so she can get ready for another day. She's opening the drawers, looking for her hairbrush, when her fingers touch the bare wall. She furrows her eyebrows in confusion and tries to wipe the mirror again without looking up. She frowns, stops, and finally stares at where the mirror should be. Still, it fails to materialize before her eyes. Spencer looks around. There are no unpacked boxes in this room. Everything should be accounted for. She touches the bare wall and then turns away, reaching for the doorknob, but her fingers wrap around air. This startles her because she doesn't understand what kind of nightmare she woke up in, all she knows is that she needs to get out of here. She sticks her finger into the hole and pulls the door open, back into her room.

Going from the stark whiteness of the bathroom to her artificially darkened cocoon, where the curtains are drawn, makes spots jump around her vision. Causing her to become dizzy and serving to further disorient and confuse her, if only for a few seconds while her vision adjusts. But it is enough to make her doubt whether she is even in her house with the stained ceiling or back in Rosewood. Trapped. Panic rises inside her. She wants to be back in her house. Back in the present. Out of their reach. Away from him. She walks along the edge of the room, clinging to the wall for support. Not entirely trusting the shadows around her to stay still. Everything is fine until she sees them moving from the corner of her eye. They start dancing all over the place, closing in. They have her surrounded and her heart starts racing. It feels like everything could cave in and the shadows are relentless, gaining ground on her. The walls suddenly feel smaller, like they're falling down on top of her, joining the shadows. Her world shifts beneath her, uprooting the relative safety she felt with her feet on solid ground. Now she knows that everything is collapsing on top of her. The ground becomes unsteady once again. She could be dying, Spencer thinks as her body drops to the floor. Her throat is dry and she manages a small cough before she crawls towards the outline of the door. Too overwhelmed by how helpless she feels at this very moment to remember how to get her legs to work correctly.

Her body knocks against something solid, her eyes fill with tears but she doesn't make a noise. She wants to get out of here alive. Maybe they're as blind as she is in the dark. When she hears a sliding noise and feels something dangerously sharp jabbing at her side, she understands that it's not the case at all. She crouches and makes a run for the door, grabbing at it but just like before, she doesn't feel the knob. The terror she feels deep inside her is so large now that it knocks her back to the ground. Or maybe it was whoever else is in the room with her. She rolls to the side, trying to deflect their attack and it's then when she hears someone else inside the room. She starts clawing at the wood in a desperate attempt to escape. The one that's closest to her kicks her shins, causing her to slide a couple of inches away from the door. It was a mistake on their part because this cracked the door open. It's not much but it's enough to stick the ends of her fingers in the space between. There's another movement and the door closes unexpectedly, crushing all eight of her fingers. The pain shoots up her body but she doesn't shout, instead Spencer pulls and lets her body fall into the safety of the hallway.

She doesn't turn her eyes away this time; she stares defiantly at her surroundings. Wanting to make sure that she is prepared for whatever is about to happen. She is panting and shaking with adrenaline and fear. The familiar perfume she used to wear in high school. After no one comes barreling out of her room, chasing after her, she rubs the palms of her hands over her eyes and takes a deep breath. Feeling small, weak and ever so foolish. She wants to go back to bed and wake up when this is all over. When her body doesn't seize up with just the idea of seeing him again. Especially at her most vulnerable. When she is between dreams and reality. Something shakes against her leg and she flinches. Waiting for the pain to begin. When it doesn't come and it shakes again, she rolls her eyes. It's just her phone. She's fine. Everything is fine. There is no boogey man anymore. The A team is thousands of miles away. There is nothing to fear. There is just nothing. Spencer reaches into her pocket and reads the texts. It's her mom. The first text is just asking how she's doing in school and the second is to apologize for waking her up so early. Forgetting the time difference between them. She sighs as she picks herself up off the floor and heads down the stairs, gripping onto the railing so she doesn't fall… or maybe it's so she can remind herself where she is.

She makes her way into the kitchen and sets her phone down on the counter. Spencer would text back but she knows that her mother doesn't actually expect a reply anymore. They haven't spoken since she was last here… in fact their communication has been reduced to voicemails and texts. Her first year here she would go through periods where she deleted every voicemail as soon as she got them and ones where she would save them all and play them over and over until she memorized every word. Until they seeped into her dreamless nights and she woke up reciting them. Or worse yet, talking to the dark as if it were her mother. Now she reads her texts and listens to her but she still can't work up the courage to answer. As days turn into months, she wonders what she could possibly say or do to apologize. She doesn't even know what they would talk about. The woman that left her here was foreign to the one that she was estranged to all her life. The one that tries to reach out to her is another one altogether. She never knew how to communicate with the Veronica Hastings that raised her. Much less this version of her. Spencer wasn't taught how to reconcile all these different women with the one that she was supposed to call mom. Her father was the same. He sent her email upon email. At first they were cold and detached ones discussing business affairs regarding her new house and things she should look into. Contacts he made while traveling, things she should apply for regarding school, clubs that would interest her because they would look good to future employers. Those weren't the problem. The others… the tiny percentage that slipped through her inbox, the ones that weren't CCd to Paige to make sure Spencer read them… those were the ones that made her uncomfortable. They were full of unfamiliar language. Regret, sadness and so many apologies for things that happened in their past. She printed them out, shoved them into manila envelopes, dated them and filed them away in the attic. Not knowing what to do with so many emotions that were as foreign to her as they probably were to her father. She didn't need the weight of them in her inbox, so she just filtered them out automatically, printed them and sealed them up. It made her feel like she was accomplishing some grandiose task instead of running away from all the things about her father that made her feel uncomfortable.

A yawn escapes her lips and she continues her routine of making herself coffee. A pang of guilt hits her as the water reaches a boil in the kettle. The expensive European coffee maker her parents sent her as a house warming present sits untouched ever since Paige left. She had loved using it. _"She didn't need a daily ritual of 27 steps in order to ground her, to remind her of where she was and where she no longer stood."_ Spencer thought bitterly. Of course the other girl could just pick up and walk away; she got her girl, new friends and a ticket out of Rosewood. All she had left was days that blended into each other and an overflowing voice mail from her concerned mother and her crestfallen friends. The whistle of the kettle snapped her back to reality and Spencer kept going with the rest of the steps. Reminding herself with each one that everything was fine. Trying to ignore the way her hands shook and how her heartbeat was still erratic at best. This needed to be just another uneventful morning… it had to be if she was going to make it through the rest of the day.

The classroom was buzzing with energy. The fluorescent lights washed out the smiling faces of her peers, making them look as dull and lifeless. Mannequins in place of people to fill up the auditorium. "Hey Spencer, hurry up, we saved you a seat." A blonde boy with dark blue eyes and a scar right below his left eye called out to her. Spencer felt her face smile back automatically, years of ingrained manners manifested themselves even through the worst of days. She made her way up to the seat reserved for her, with the group of classmates that called themselves her friends. Her smile hadn't reached her eyes but they didn't seem to pay close enough attention. That's the reason why she chose them. Not because they were young and ambitious and connections meant everything in her world. That was a bonus. She had selected them because they were too self-absorbed to be concerned about her. Emily, Aria and Hanna would have only ignored her for so long before they figured out the best way to approach her. To get her to talk to them. Even while she was across the country, the kept trying different ways to reach out to her. These people were different. These people were not her friends. They were connections. They were… they were other things. She had no more room for friends. She no longer had that luxury. "Hey guys." She said while giving them a curt nod and setting her stuff down. "Hey Spencer, did you have an opportunity to look over the figures we gave you? I mean I think I did the homework correctly, just like the rest of the guys, but with this prof you never know, right?" Michael said as he leaned over her arm rest. Making her uncomfortable with the way he seemed so at ease when he was invading her personal space. His blue eyes scanning her face discreetly. Spencer made sure to keep her features blank, not wanting to give away the fact that she had easily completed the assignment. She needed to play along with these people. Pretend that university was as hard as everyone made it out to be. That she was struggling just as much as they were. That she couldn't understand simple problems when in fact she had been doing something harder in her AP courses back in Rosewood, that even her courses at Hollis hadn't bothered to cover this elementary material because it was a waste of time. They were already weary of her because she was younger than them; she didn't need to give them another reason to single her out.

"Just leave the kid alone Mikey, she's totally out of her depth." Joshua snickered into his hand. "Hey Josh, come on man. That ain't cool… she's our friend too." Michael tried to intervene in Spencer's defense, thinking that she couldn't handle a few insults from some fratboy that preferred backwards baseball caps as a futile attempt to distract from the fact that he already had a receding hairline before he hit his mid-20s. Spencer felt her jaw clench in anger. She narrowed her eyes at him and her voice dropped dangerously low. "I'd be careful and heed your friend's warning Joshua. You _do not_ want to mess with me right now." She advised him. Joshua laughed and threw his hands up in the air. Showing how unafraid he was of Spencer by mocking her. "Ohh I'm so scared." Spencer swallowed down a growl before it worked its way up her throat. "You should be." She said menacingly, not noticing that the room around them had fallen silent. Everyone wanted to eavesdrop in their conversation. Spencer refused to speak up in class; even outside of it she kept her conversations curt and concise. Talking to others unnecessarily wore her out; they always expected so many things from her that she avoided it whenever she could. She didn't need to disappoint anybody else.

The fact that she was so calm while anybody else would have shouted only made whatever she was about to say more worthy of their attention. "Come on, what can you possibly do? Much less know about this fucking class? You're just some stupid bitch." He said. Spencer shook her head before speaking. Being careful not to raise her voice, even while she was seething with anger, instead she smiled sweetly and used her sweetest voice. As if she were speaking to a child that was too stupid to understand what they were doing wrong. "I'll concede to your second point. I am a bitch. But stupid is something I have never been confused for." With this Spencer leaned forward so she was face to face with Joshua. She had to be sure that he not only heard every word that came out of her mouth but that he understood her. She was not in the mood to repeat herself. "Remember Joshua, there is a reason why I have a full ride here in addition to a stipend, even while being out of state. It's also the same reason as to why I'm the youngest junior in our whole graduating class." Joshua's cocky smile faltered but he still tried to laugh her off. This only made her angrier, so she pushed on, wanting to wipe that knowing grin off of his fucking face for good.

"It's probably not the same reason why your daddy had to make a call and a very generous donation to the school… just to get you wait listed... not even accepted… just waitlisted for summer school in order to play catch up so it wouldn't look like you bought your way in…" Everyone's eyes widened at this revelation and Joshua's head shook from side to side, incredulous at how Spencer could have come across this information. "… it wasn't until after your backpacking year off to see Europe that you were able to enroll. Isn't that right? Ohh and by the way, thanks for the new dorms… my friend really likes staying in them, she says that they were worth every penny of your daddy's money." His shoulders dropped and he looked absolutely crushed. "How do you…" He stammered. Too stunned to finish asking his question. Spencer smiled. "There's a lot I know. Especially things that you don't. Like the fact that your daddy isn't even your biological father… and yet he still spent all that money trying to get people to believe that you were part of the proud Van Hauser name. Guess we know now why little Janet was always the favorite, right?" She finished quietly. No longer feeling angry. Just satisfied. Not at the way Joshua's face had transformed from arrogant to a mixture of horror and shock. She wasn't proud of herself for crushing him, especially so publically. She was just glad that he would finally stop throwing little jabs at her as a way to get her to notice him. She was tired of showering him with inadvertent attention because he couldn't work up the courage to be open about how much he liked her so she could quickly shoot him down and move on. She was exhausted from carrying the weight of his affections on her shoulders because she wasn't the type of girl that could love someone like him back.

To be honest, Spencer felt empty now. She felt horrible but it was too late. The damage was already done. Gasps and murmurs turned to whispers that slowly built up into a wall of white noise that engulfed the room. Joshua looked around and all he could see through watery eyes were the faces of his friends staring at him in glee. They couldn't text the news fast enough to their circle of friends, some even called their parents, too excited to wait. They wanted to be the ones to share the punch line with them instead of their socialite friends from the country club. Joshua feels sick. He shakes his head in dismay, his eyes turning red from the effort it's taking not to cry in front of the auditorium. He takes a deep breath and when Spencer looks like she's about to reach out to him and apologize, to try to make it all go away, he can't take being in the same room as her anymore. Because if she were to ask him to forgive her, he would, Even when she's the reason why his world feels like it is ending, he would forgive Spencer Hastings for being such a heinous person because he has loved her from afar for so long and that thought makes him sick because he can feel himself fill up with reassuring words already. It makes him feel weak and the last thing he needs is for her to see him be that pathetic. He jumps from his seat and falls over himself as he tries to run out of the room. Leaving his stuff behind and not listening to the shouts of his friends calling after him in vain. He bumps into the professor in the hallway but he doesn't stop as he shouts that this class will be the only breakdown of the homework they will have because they've already lost too much time going over other concepts in the curricula. But he doesn't turn back, he keeps on running.

Everyone stares back at Spencer and she shrugs her shoulders as she picks her stuff from the floor. Pretending not to care as she tastes bile in the back of her throat. She knows she's no good. She would have never done something this cruel and vindictive back in Rosewood. She takes a deep breath and thinks about what she's going to do. She can't stay in the same room as them. She needs to find something that makes her feel like she isn't a monster. She needs to feel someone that doesn't know this new Spencer that she conjured as a way to keep herself safe. She needs to find Paige because this class is just a waste of her time and being with Paige has never been that.

Michael gently grabs at her wrist and she jumps back from the unexpected contact as if he had burned her. He quickly drops his hand, his calloused fingers raking over her skin as he does. She cradles her arm, flashing back to this morning, not explaining why she is so jumpy and unlike herself. Michael looks sad but he still tries to talk to her. "That was kind of harsh and unnecessary, don't you think?" Spencer shakes her head. Not really listening to him. She looks around, wanting to make sure that everything is where it is supposed to be in this room. When nothing comes jumping at her she shakes her head. Not at his words, but at the memories of the shadows attacking her this morning. When he clears his throat she looks at him again. Remembering where she is. She wants to tell him how Joshua had it coming. That she wasn't in a good mood and he still chose to antagonize her. But she knows that it wasn't his fault. Nobody should have been that cruel to him. Even his father didn't have the heart to tell him the truth. She had no right doing that to him. But she still had. So she bit her lip and sighed. There are no words to make this okay. Not to Michael. And not to Joshua. She shrugs at him, hoping that it's enough and he shakes his head. She's not really sure if it's because he still doesn't agree with what she did or because he's too busy looking at her as if it were the first time he's laid eyes on her. As if he's trying to see her in a different light.

She makes her way the same way Joshua made his exit, first through the rows of people and then down the stairs. Her professor turns over to her and before he can inform her of the same thing he told Joshua she quickly pulls out three color coded folders from her backpack. "The blue one has all the answers to the assignment, exactly as you gave it to us. The red copy has all the correct answers, seeing as some of your problems actually had several mistakes or were outdated. And the green one has a detailed breakdown of each and every one of the problems. I suggest you use the green one for today's lecture Professor Ackerman. Verbatim. Otherwise my peers will continue interrupting your weekends with their demands of extra tutoring time." She pulls the strap of her backpack over her shoulder. Her professor smiles at her and waves the green folder in front of his face, as if he were fanning himself. "Thank you Miss Hastings. You really should reconsider my offer to be my TA next semester. I can't stand the worthless grad students they've saddled me with these past couple of years. Not when I've seen what you can do." Spencer doesn't even bother looking like it's worth considering. He doesn't know the first thing of what she's capable of.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Am I the only one that is in love with this new and broken Spencer? I seriously can't get enough of her. And these past few episodes have been so perfect for my headcanon of Spencer's unraveling.


	6. The Storm

The sky was grey. She doesn't know how she missed it this morning. It was an ominous leaden grey that looked like it was waiting for something. Maybe it was a warning. Or maybe it the sky here always looks grey, like it's perpetually on the brink of an oncoming storm. She bit her lower lip and kept her eyes trained on her feet. Making sure that as she puts one foot in front of the other, they listen to her, forcing them to take her to her destination. Just like she had to will them into action this morning. Maybe that's the reason why she missed the way the sky looks. She no longer looks straight ahead when she walks during the day. She has to look down in case there is the possibility that her body will stop listening to her. That she will lose more time by just staying in bed all day. Even if all she does is try to force herself to go back to sleep. Where she is too tired to stop sleeping but too tired to get up. Even if she sleeps over 10 hours some days. She stares at her dust covered shoes. She wonders if her mother is disappointed that she doesn't shine them the way she used to, so that they would look brand new. Her mother is probably more disappointed in her fear of sunny skies than she is of Spencer's grooming habits but she can't help but think about how sad the overly demanding version of her mother would be, how disappointed, at the fact that she couldn't even bother to make her shoes shine. She shivers and holds her jacket tighter around her body but it does nothing to ward off the feeling of dread that is slowly building within her. Maybe she is the storm. She tries to ignore this so she keeps on walking. Occupying her mind with anything else that isn't what rages inside her.

After a couple of minutes she has to wipe a thin layer of sweat from her forehead. She will never get used to going up and down hills. Rosewood was flat. It was easy to get around. This city feels like a maze of hills and tall buildings that are balanced precariously on the edge of the sidewalks, ready to crumple on top of her. She wonders how people could have survived long enough to build anything here. Without collapsing from the same exhaustion that's constantly letting her know that she doesn't sleep enough. How could anyone choose to come from the dark seas onto this very spot, made of hard rock and grey skies when there are so many other places that would have been easier to settle down in? Where they wouldn't have to dream of sunny skies and warm beaches. Then again, there have to be some benefits to unsettled skies… wasn't this whole city a testament to just that? She stops and squints at the brick buildings that are making their way closer to her. She can hear her own ragged breathing, as if they were thousands of feet above the sea and she was suffering altitude sickness. It was unsettling how her body doesn't really know what to make of this place yet. It was probably the same reason why her mind could never start getting comfortable with the idea that she managed to escape Rosewood unscathed. That she left everything behind. For good. She closes her eyes and rubs her temples with her slender fingers. _It's just a little further away_, she reminds herself before she takes a deep breath and keeps going on her way.

The door opens with a loud click, the locking mechanism slowly being released when she pushed at it. The heavy glass along with the copper plated handles makes it hard to casually step into the brick building. She takes a second to recover before going through the inner set of doors, just as heavy and difficult to open as the first. It almost feels like a carnival feat of strength to be able to come completely inside. She wishes the other girl spent most of her time in one of the newer buildings instead of this aging behemoth made of stone. Not only did it feel too cold in the summer, during the winter months the faulty heating made it unbearably hot. She wiped at her forehead again but refused to take her jacket off. The lights flickered above her, betraying the defective wiring inside this building that for so long made others believe that it was haunted. Or it could be. _Maybe the ghosts of the dead girls that couldn't be saved also lived here. They lived within her and now they haunted this place as well._ She scoffed at this thought. She didn't believe in ghosts, she didn't believe in anything. Even though there were days where she wishes there was something bigger than her that could answer all her questions. She would always stare at her friends that believed in god with a quiet jealousy. Studying them, wondering what it took to have blind faith and devotion in something that just didn't exist. _Like her._ When they went to Ali's funeral… the first one her family had held, she had lowered her head like everyone else and clasped her hands together to see if she could feel… just feel something. When she didn't have some revelation as to why her friend had died under such mysterious circumstances, she just thought _"well of course." _She didn't know what she expected.

Then, when she lost all that time in the lake house… when she tried to believe again… just to be sure. Because she had to be certain that she had exhausted all possibilities, all avenues of knowledge, and nothing happened yet again… that was when she knew. That she had been right all along. There was no higher power. No grand plan. Nothing. Just twisted, fucked up people with endless ways to torture her and her friends. With a million ways to try to break them until they cracked. Until they bled. It could have been anyone else in Rosewood. Any other group of friends. But it hadn't been. It was them. And it bothered her that she still had more questions than answers, even after the whole thing was laid to rest. She knew that there was a phrase somewhere that told her to leave things well alone, but she couldn't remember why it was important when knowing secrets destroyed them and not knowing them did it just as well.

"Spencer?" It sounded as if someone was calling out her name from the end of a tunnel, but it all got lost before it got to her ears. "Spencer!" This time it was louder and it snapped her out of her thoughts long enough to look up from the ground and around. She frowned, confused as to when she had actually gotten here and how long she had been staring at her dirty shoes again. She really needs to clean them, she thought. That's when she realized that she was doing it again. Getting lost. So she tried to blink away the confusion but it wouldn't go away. It was like she was still stuck somewhere else even though she was where she wanted to be.

Paige ran towards her, not caring that the floor around the pool was slippery. Her coaches and teammates shouted at her to be careful but she didn't slow down. She couldn't. Spencer had that lost look on her face that always meant trouble. It awakened a sense of urgency that she hadn't felt in moths… the last time… she didn't want to think about the last time this had happened. She thought she would lose her again. That she would be there to see her drown in some other way… except this time… this time she wouldn't be able to bring her back. Even then it took weeks to bring her back and she still wasn't the same. Like at the lake. She didn't want this time to be the one where she never returned. Even if it was just in pieces. So she ignored her better judgment and didn't stop until she was right in front of Spencer. Her arms were mid-air when she stopped herself from reaching out. Pulling them back so they stayed suspended near Spencer. Paige didn't know if she should touch her or not. She was never a good judge of when that was an appropriate thing to do. Her family only hugged during social functions. They were never ones to overflow with unnecessary displays of emotion. She had to learn how to stop herself from flinching every time Emily would reach out to touch her or hug her unexpectedly. And still… there were days when she couldn't seem to get it quite right. When she would tense at Emily's touch and had to be gently reminded that she could relax. Days when she thought she would never get any of this right. But Emily just smiled and held her tighter, telling her that she would never let her go. Those were the days when she believed that there was nothing wrong with her. That she could be normal.

Paige didn't want to startle Spencer, afraid that she might spook like a deer and run away from her before she learned what was bothering the other girl enough to come to her. She knew it had to be something huge because this wasn't their dynamic. Paige was the one that would always seek the other girl out. Make sure that she was as all right as she could be these days before dropping her off at her doorstep. She was the one that answered questions, calls and emails regarding Spencer's well-being. Paige became their only link to Spencer once they realized that their attempts to reach out to her would continue going unanswered. But they didn't give up once Paige reassured them that Spencer did read every text, every email and listened to every voicemail they left her. Even if she was unsure of whether this was true or not. It made them happy to know that they weren't just talking into a void, that their words disappeared into nothingness. So they kept reaching out and Paige kept updating Veronica and Peter Hastings regularly… even Melissa on occasion. She was the one that Aria, Hanna and Emily deferred to when they wanted to know how their friend was _really_ doing. The one they could trust to be brutally honest. But she wasn't the one that could be that heartless. She couldn't be as honest as she was in the beginning. Not when she could hear the worry in Emily's voice every time Spencer came up in their daily conversations. Or see how stressed out Emily looked when they managed to talk through skype. So Paige appeased them with pat answers at how well Spencer was doing in class. Filtering out the Spencer that she knew and the one they wanted to exist. The one that couldn't be falling apart because she was still an excellent student. Because her grades weren't slipping and she still managed to brush her hair in the morning. Paige soon learned how to send them things they could be proud of, things they were relieved to hear. Pictures of Spencer that weren't posed but didn't tell the whole truth either. Something to placate them. To stop them from actually flying across the country to see Spencer only to realize that it was all lies. That Paige couldn't be trusted to do this one thing right because Spencer was worse off than before. Except this time there was no way to make it instantly better. To pull her back from the place she was stuck in and just ask her to breathe again. So she pretended that everything was all right, regardless of how far from the truth it was.

Spencer didn't seem to notice her standing in front of her. Paige shook her head and put her hands on Spencer's shoulders. "Hey." She said in her gentlest voice. Spencer only frowned, as if she didn't know whether to believe that Paige was really there or not. Paige tried to grab Spencer's face, so the other girl would look at her but Spencer shook out of her fingers before she could hold her, staring down at her feet. Paige hugged Spencer to her then because she didn't know what else to do. She had no more answers; she didn't know where to look.

When Spencer felt Paige hug her, something slowly shifted into place until it snapped her back to reality. And suddenly she became painfully aware of her surroundings. The smell of chlorine was overwhelming; it came from the pool, hung around the ceiling and all around the girls that made up the team. It wafted from Paige's pores. If the shorter girl hadn't been holding onto Spencer so fiercely, she would have collapsed from the way it was choking her. It was sweltering in the pool area and she wondered why she hadn't noticed that she was sweating through her thermals. It was so hot here. She shivered and Paige tightened her grip. Spencer's sweater and coat absorbed all the excess water from Paige's body. Further weighing her down. Exhausting her. She sighed and tried to bury her face in Paige's neck, the way she had seen Emily do countless times, but it was slightly awkward. Maybe it was because she was wearing heels and Paige wasn't and the angle was all wrong, or maybe it was because she just wasn't Emily and she could never seek that kind of comfort from Paige. She had never wished to be anyone else until that very moment because she wondered what it was like to be able to hug Paige without it feeling off.

Paige shifted so she could say something to her teammates and when she blinked heavy eyelids for a chance to get used to the blinding lights inside of this place she saw that they were walking across campus again. That she was being lead towards her house. She was leaning against Paige because the hills seemed endless and they made her legs ache. Or at least that's what she told herself. Spencer looked down to make sure that it was her feet that were walking next to Paige's and that's when she realized that Paige was wearing her running shoes without any socks on. She fixated on this little thing, wondering if it was a common occurrence, letting her thoughts drift away, until they made it up the steps and she was standing in front of the red door that told her she was home.

Paige led her upstairs by the hand and sat her down, kneeling in front of her and looking at her eyes. They're so gentle and sincere that she actually listens carefully to the words that come out of Paige's mouth. "Hey. Stay right here. I'm not going anywhere and I don't want you to go anywhere either. I'm just going to be right here. Okay? Just right here. If you need me, just say my name. Or don't. But just let me know. Okay?" Spencer nods and Paige looks like she wants to say more but the way Spencer smiles weakly at her makes her body lose all the tension she felt. The dread at the pit of her stomach is momentarily replaced by happiness. It's tiny. But it's there. And it fills her with hope that everything will be all right. That she can do this. So Paige starts untying her laces. Kicking her shoes off and then her warm up pants come next. The warm up jacket falls to the ground, landing on a heap next to the quiet girl. Spencer stares at them, wondering when Paige had gotten dressed because all she could remember was that she was constantly touching her when they were at the pool. She stared at her hands until the room filled up with mist and it seemed like her imagination was filtering into reality. Distorting everything. She wasn't sure if the mist around her was telling her that she was still outside in the dark or safely indoors. _"This is probably what it feels like to lose your mind."_ Spencer thought. She looked up to take in her surroundings and that's when she actually saw that she was safe. She was sitting on top of her toilet in the bathroom down the hall from her room. She heard Paige whispering melodiously to herself. Like she wanted to sing in the shower but she was afraid of her own voice. So she just kept it to herself, like a secret. It made her smile. These were the best kinds of secrets. So she tucked it away in the back of her mind so she could revisit it later.

The water stopped and with it, Paige's soft singing. It made her feel a pang of sadness because she wanted the song to go on and on and on until it was all she knew because even though the lyrics were unfamiliar, the emotion behind every word wasn't. The loneliness Paige felt. The way she sang it so sweetly, even though it seemed to be killing her, felt familiar to Spencer. It drowned out all the other noise inside her until all she wanted to hear was the echo of Paige's feelings in her own heart.

When Paige materialized in front of her, she was wrapped in a thick towel. It was soft blue, like the sea when it's calm. She stared at Paige's shoulders, the straps of her bra clashing against the color of her guest towels. Something her mother would scoff at but that Spencer finds kind of charming in this unexplainable way… it's a strange sensation. "Hey. I'm back. All clean now." Spencer nods and smiles because she likes this Paige. The one that can sing in the shower and be all soft edges and sincere eyes with a gentle voice that's capable of guiding her out of the fog. "Yeah." Spencer answers, feeling stupid because she really doesn't know what to say to the Paige that Emily could easily fall in love. The one she never got to know… until now. Paige stands up and Spencer follows. As Paige gathers her clothes Spencer reaches out and tries to open the door only to realize that there's no doorknob and the panic she felt this morning swells inside of her until it feels like it's itching to break out of her skin. To be released. So she screams.

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**Author's Note: **Breaking the small present/past pattern I established to bring you this chapter. I was going to wait until the weekend ended to finish/post it but I decided to get it up before my evening run. Enjoy :)


	7. The Mirrors

The minute Spencer reached for a doorknob that she knew wasn't there, Paige felt something give in her chest. It could have been nothing. Habit, really. Except it was more than that and she knew it. She didn't want it to be though. She wanted it to be another small thing that could easily be ignored, piled on top of the other moments she let slip. But the thing about piling things one on top of the other was that sooner or later, the tiniest breeze is all it took to have it all come crashing down. Spencer's desperate shouting was that breeze. It sounded like she was trapped between a nightmare and reality, unable to distinguish between the two. Paige tried asking her to calm down but it was too late, Spencer was no longer in the same room, even if she was still stuck in the bathroom with her.

She tried to touch her shoulder. Only to be pushed away. She tried calling her name out, Spencer turned around briefly, but her eyes were wild and unfocused. She wasn't responding to the sound of her name, so much as a sound that was louder than her drowning on dry land. That look Spencer gave to the room, as if it were empty, was when it dawned on her. The realization that this whole thing she was trying so desperately to hold onto, to not fuck up… it had spiraled so far out of her control that there was no way to pretend that things were all right. Not anymore. They would never be fine or okay or even barely scraping by. All the days she swore to herself that she would somehow make it all right, for Emily, for herself, for Spencer, for everyone back in Rosewood that depended on her, they fell away. It was the only delusion that made it less terrifying to go about her daily life. And it had shattered around them like the mirrors in all the bathrooms had at Spencer's hands so many, many, months ago.

Spencer had been the same way as she was today, wild, like a trapped animal. Lashing out at everything after waking up still drunk enough not to feel pain but sober enough to have a twisted form of reality creep into her consciousness. To scare her into thinking that A was there with them, even if it had been years. It felt like they were back in high school. Spencer was off; fighting her own demons in her head, unaware of the world around her and Paige had just been in the wrong place at the right time to witness her unraveling.

It was one of those rare nights when she had been uncomfortably sleeping in the same bed she had shared with Emily during the summer instead of the one in her dorm. Turning over and over in a bed that was both unfamiliar and comfortably hers, trying to find the cool side of the pillow. As if that would stop reminding her that she made the wrong choice for what she thought were all the right reasons once again. Hurting herself first and everyone she loved by extension because she couldn't explain herself well enough to apologize for doing this one selfless thing. Because that would mean telling them that it wasn't selfless at all but in fact, it was so inheritably selfish that it made her feel uncomfortable. Her being here was a complete farce. Paige knew that Emily _couldn't_ lose Spencer. She _just couldn't_. It would completely devastate her. And even though Paige couldn't protect her from everything, she could protect her from this. She had seen what happened to Emily when she realized she had lost Toby to A. She couldn't go through something that big again, especially with someone as important to her as Spencer. So she picked the school that was out of Emily's reach but not her own.

She didn't do it to hurt Emily, but it happened none the less. Part of it had been a blow to her wounded pride, knowing that even though she was the better swimmer of the two, she still was only able to make it as far as another city. While Paige could go further than the edge of their small town; she sat at the edge of the country. It hurt to know that natural talent didn't pay off as much as consistency did in the end. The gaps in her swim team history, coupled with her slipping grades made her a weaker candidate to recruiters. And when Paige didn't jump at the chance to their guaranteed early admission, they grudgingly came looking for her. It was a source of mounting tension between them. The kind they could fight about. Because the thing they couldn't fight about but still crept into their arguments was the irrational fear Emily had about A getting to them. They were out here, all alone, easy targets. Waiting to be finished off once and for all. Paige reminded her that A was locked up and they were further away than Hanna, Aria and her. Plus, if A couldn't destroy them while they were free to run around, what made her think that it would be any different while they were incarcerated?

Something woke her from her half-sleeping state where she rehashed old arguments with Emily, trying to get the other girl to see her side of things, only to end up more twisted than the sheets around her. That feeling of dread hauled her out of bed and into the bathroom. She rinsed her mouth with water and washed her face. She didn't even have time to dry it when she heard it. The distinct sound of someone falling apart under so much pressure. It sounded like a dull thud. Followed by another and then another. And another until she was at the door of Spencer's bedroom, pushing uselessly against the heavy wooden doors with her shoulders; throwing herself against it with all her desperate strength. A door that survived generations under the same kind of pressure she was putting on it. She heaved her whole weight against it but it only served to remind her that she was flesh and it was an unmovable object with which she couldn't win a fight against.

She ran down the stairs, her socks slipping against the edged of the carpet, where the hardwood floors began. As she raced down the steps, two, sometimes three at a time she prayed for two things: for god not to let her slip and die and for her to reach the basement and the top of the stairs just in time. She prayed those two things over and over, until they became a chant. A silent deal between her and god that if she kept repeating those two things in her head over and over, nothing bad could happen to Spencer while she was running around the house. Hating herself for being so monumentally stupid. Why had she put the tools in the basement? Why? Why? God, why oh why? She knew why though. It was logical. And her life had almost always been ruled by logic.

Paige was the only one that used them. They would only take up room everywhere else. Even in the attic, where Spencer was filing away god knows what, they would take up room. And it was already an inconvenience that Paige was taking up so much room in Spencer's life when she had been uninvited. So she stored them away somewhere that was completely unimportant to anyone else but her. Sweat ran down her forehead, stinging her eyes. She wasn't used to this kind of effort outside the water. This blind panic. She rounded the end of the stairs and reached the basement door and then the bottom of those stairs in the dark. Knowing where everything was, purely by memory. The cool, stone floor served as her guide. She had done this a hundred times. But not with this sense of urgency to push her forward. Her hip caught the corner of the table and she put her hands out, fingertips bumping things out of place until she felt the smaller toolbox. The smooth, metal red one that her dad had given her for her birthday the same year her grandfather passed away. She didn't touch it for over a year, not until the video of her grandpa mooning the camera emerged. Then she couldn't bear to part with it. So she stored it away in Spencer's basement. Along with all the other things that didn't quite fit into her new life but couldn't be left behind with her old one.

She ran up, tripping a couple of times when her feet didn't quite land right. Bruising her shins and arms as she landed hard on them. It didn't slow her down. When she reached the top of the second set of stairs, the door to Spencer's room was open and relief flooded her body. She set her grandpa's toolbox down on the floor and wiped at her forehead as she pushed the door open. The light to the bathroom was shining. A thin line of hope in the darkness. "Spencer?" She asked softly. She didn't expect an answer but was still disappointed when she didn't get one anyway. "Spence?" She tried again, the nickname effortlessly leaving her lips as her hand gripped the cold metal tightly. She turned her wrist and fell backwards on her ass. Her heart slowed down, her breathing sped up and the world spun around her as the bathroom came into full view. It was a complete mess. There was some blood on the wall where the mirror used to be. Most of it was spattered in and around the sink. Shards of broken glass all over the floor. Paige shook her head, telling the empty bathroom that no, this couldn't be real. That it was some kind of fucked up dream. But as her dinner made its way back up her throat and she knelt at the toilet, embedding pieces of the broken mirror on the knees of her pants, she knew that it couldn't be anything else but the real thing. She wiped her mouth and before she could feel worse, or even slightly better, she heard the same dull thud coming from down the hall and she knew. She fucking knew that if she didn't make it in time, Spencer would be forever lost.

She jumped out of the bathroom, avoiding the bits of broken mirror in one swift motion, falling into the bedroom and taking off running. Halfway down the hall she rounded back and grabbed her toolbox. She worked as fast as she could; unscrewing the tiny golden plated screws that held the doorknobs together. When it still wasn't good enough, she dropped the screwdriver and tugged at them with her fingertips. Twisting as her mouth went dry and her shallow breathing made her feel like she was about to pass out. When the second screw came out, she pulled on the knob, letting the other half fall into the bathroom. Pushing the door open and lunging at Spencer as a way to stop her from hurting herself any further. Spencer didn't shout. She didn't react. Her face remained the same blank and passive one that she'd had when the door burst open. It was as if she were unaware that she'd been tackled to the floor. She just lay there, motionless, looking up at the ceiling with such eerie calm that it broke something inside of Paige.

It was that same fucking apathy to her own destruction that made Paige grip Spencer's bathrobe until her knuckles were white. Intent on shaking her until she came back from whatever dark place she was trapped in; but Paige couldn't get her arms to work. It was all too much once again. She was losing Spencer to the water like that hot night in the cabin. But this time there was no way to breathe life back into her. She cried into Spencer's shirt. Shaking against her, wondering why she just couldn't be enough to save her. To save anyone. Why she wasn't brave and strong the way Emily was. Or full of understanding and love the way Hanna could be. Or even quiet determination like Aria. She was full of doubt and self-loathing and hopelessness and all these fucked up things inside her head that didn't do anyone any good.

Her body shook against Spencer's as she struggled to get enough air inside her lungs. To push down the fear and exhaustion she felt. Still, Spencer was unresponsive. Stuck on the edge of reality and wherever she disappeared to when her eyes got glassy and unfocused. Her head lolling gently from side to side. Soft lips forming secrets so quiet that they never reached Paige's ears. It made her cry even harder. Feeling dizzy at the way Spencer could be here and not be there at all.

When she was done crying, done embarrassing herself for no reason, done with being weak once again, she stood up and cleaned up Spencer's bathroom. Leaving the catatonic girl on the floor, covered with a towel for warmth. She took off the doorknob from the bathroom and then her room and then all the rooms, even the one she occasionally stayed in. Throwing them in an empty cardboard box. She didn't even bother to label them. Just put them in the basement, along with her toolbox and the rest of the mirrors that stood unbroken. She thought about the knives and all the sharp and heavy blunt object that Spencer could use against herself and tears burned down her throat as she swallowed all the sadness she felt because no matter how safe she made this place, Spencer was smart enough to find new ways to hurt herself. She couldn't do anyone any good. But this had to be enough for now.

It was only meant to be a temporary solution.

Forgotten during all those nights when Spencer had to be walked home from the bar and she patiently waited twenty minutes out on the cold until she let herself in behind her. Sleeping half the night outside her bedroom door; uncomfortably propped up against the wall, ready to run in at any sign of trouble. Leaving at two or three in the morning because her back hurt and she needed to swim the next morning regardless of how shitty she felt. Walking through the house on autopilot just to ensure that everything was the way she left it the night before. The windows had their latches on, the thermostat was set to a comfortable temperature and the basement door still had that layer of dust and the only working lock inside the house. She tugged at the door that lead to the backyard and made her way out the front door. Locking Spencer in until she could protect her once again. Knowing that she would show up to class the next day because the routine was the only thing in her life that made sense any more.

She didn't realize that Spencer forgot how she spent the whole weekend with her. Pulling at pieces of glass with tweezers that kept slipping and coming up empty half the time. Pouring alcohol that bubbled and turned pink when it hit her knuckles. Gently setting her down in a warm bath she drew, washing her like a child, trying to get any sort of reaction from her. Spencer only blinked slowly and stared past her. The world happened around her and she just let it slip by. Until Monday came around and she woke up early, showered, put on clothes and made herself a cup of coffee. All while staring at her hands, as if they were foreign to her. Concentrating on them. And then she walked out the front door with her backpack slung over her shoulder. Ready for another day of college as if it were the most normal thing in the world. And in a way it was.

"Spencer, wake up." Paige commanded. Hoping it was as easy as waking a child from a nightmare. Spencer kept shouting and trying to grasp at a non-existent doorknob. Paige shook her and Spencer lunged at her. Pulling at her towel and then scratching her bare skin with her fingernails so sharp and uneven. As if she were not fighting Paige herself but the darkness around her, trying to stop it before it swallowed her whole again. Like the water. Like all the pools of time she was missing. Like the last time when all the mirrors had to be tucked away along with the doorknobs. Paige put her arms up to cover her face, shouting her name over and over, trying to remind Spencer who she was. But it was no use. Finally she threw her arms around Spencer in a bear hug, trapping her arms between them. "Spencer. Spence, wake up. It's me. Paige. Paige McCullers… please wake up… just wake up…" She kept whispering the last part into Spencer's hair. Over and over. Desperate to feel Spencer stop struggling and become the same shell of a girl she had gotten used to taking care of.

When Spencer wore herself out and fell asleep against her, it was pitch black outside. Paige got up from underneath her and carried her down the hall. Opening the door to her bedroom with her hip and fumbling around the wall next to the doorframe for the light. She set Spencer down in the middle of the bed and slipped her heels off along with her coat and sweater. Then she re-arranged the boxes that were scattered all over the room so they were up against the wall. The constant earthquakes here made it hard to keep everything in its place. Especially when they were big enough to shift boxes that were half empty. She wondered why Spencer didn't finish putting her room away. Maybe it would make her move here too permanent. Or it would make it harder to feel like she could run at any minute… she was too tired to care. Paige went into the guest bathroom, hung up her towel, grabbed her stuff and put on a Rosewood Sharks t-shirt along with a pair of shorts, then she went through her nightly ritual of making sure the house was the same as the day before and went into Spencer's room. Propping herself against the door. Watching Spencer through eyes that grew heavier and heavier with each breath she took. Emily would have to forgive her for not calling tonight. That was the last thought she had when her head dropped and she was satisfied that Spencer wouldn't be able to go anywhere tonight without jarring her awake.

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**Author's Note:** Awww yiss time to update one of my favorite fics to write. Nothing like angst to get ready for tomorrow's premier. Also, ughh, nothing but eternal rage for this site's refusal to do my formatting bidding.


	8. The Man

The night was sultry and sinister. With the air so thick and choking it could only mean rain… or it could spell something else entirely. She licked her dry lips and took a small breath. Trying to drive the fear out, but it was impossible. It had already settled deep within her chest and nothing would dislodge it until morning came. Until she was sure she had survived another night out in this twisted city.

She made her mind up that only a distraction would calm the fluttering in her chest. She needed to lose a couple of hours at the bottom of two or maybe three glasses of cheap whiskey. She could afford better but preferred the kind that singed her throat on the way down. That uncomfortable burning went better with the sugary cola that only made her thirstier. The good stuff was almost imperceptible. Too faint for her to like. She preferred a combination that reminded her that even though she felt half-alive most of the time, she was still very much in the present moment. Even if only a couple of hours at a time.

Her feet moved forward ever so slightly as she was still locking her door. Her body craved a safe place to run to once she left the relative comfort of her home. Her beautiful prison made of stone. Spencer shook her head. Reprimanding herself because this was no longer her parent's golden cage. This had been her choice. Rather, it had been the only choice that hadn't been taken from her by A.

She sighed. Suddenly exhausted. Craving the imagined coziness of the bar. The only place she could go to in order to dull out the edges of her mind. Where, if she drank long enough she could buy into the lies she told herself every night, like a fairytale. That she would have chosen this city regardless of what A had done.

She scowled and looked up at the starless sky above her. All the things that boiled inside of her, threatening to overwhelm her once again, needed to be held at bay. Her throat was parched. She ached to be numb enough to make it back home and drift into unconsciousness. Without getting too sad about where her life was headed. Wishing for it to be exactly the way she had often pictured it as a young girl. The version of herself that could have stayed.

With that plan in the forefront of her mind, she set forth to put it into motion. Determined to return to her house only when she could hide from her own demons again. She kept walking down the familiar streets that she couldn't yet bring herself to call home. She felt guilty for that. These winding hills weren't something she was anxious to explore. They just were. Winding up and down until they led her to the places she needed to go. Nothing more than an intersecting line between two points.

She put her hands in her pockets. Her heels echoing faintly. Punctuating each shallow and uneven breath she took. The only things that broke the silence of the night. It was odd though. Even with everything being the same as every night before this one, she started feeling uneasy. She clenched her hands into fists and then unclenched them a couple of times. She bit her lip. Worried. Her hands still tingled. Almost as if they were about to go numb. That only happened a couple of times before. Like back at the bell tower, before Ian…

She stopped.

Hyperaware of the possibility of danger looming near, Spencer's back straightened. This wasn't the same old fear that resided inside of her. It was something entirely new. Like a borrowed coat that was too big for her to wear. It was menacing in a different way that A had been. She could sense it; deep inside, that something was off. And it wasn't just her. This couldn't be attributed to baseless paranoia. She swallowed. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and she shivered.

It wasn't the cold.

She was sweating. Spencer looked around, scanning her surroundings. The flickering street lights hid more than they illuminated; bathing the rest of the world in shadows. Instead of showing her what lay beyond the darkness around her. It made her heart beat slightly faster. The way that the more she looked, the less she saw, instead of the other way around.

Suddenly, a noise echoed from up the hill she had just come from. "Hello?" She called out in a shaking voice. "Is anybody out there?" She asked. Nobody answered. Nothing stirred. She wanted to reproach herself for sounding so small. Just like the scared little girl that she tried to leave behind in Rosewood. "Hello?" She tried once again. But got nothing in return. Just the sound of fear echoing off the buildings near her. _Don't be stupid. There's nobody there._ She thought. Trying to reassure herself.

When the noise came at her again, this time, just a fraction closer she flinched. Still, she didn't run. She stood still, bathing in artificial light. Scared of the dark like she hadn't been in years.

The faint noise could be heard again, closer still, and at once she knew. Footsteps. Heavy ones. She squinted in the dark. Feeling stupid. Exposed. She could have stayed at home, safely locked behind closed doors. Instead of subjecting herself to the dangers that lay out here, waiting for her to make this kind of mistake. The kind she made when she got complacent. Lazy… something that would have never happened had she stayed in Rosewood, she thinks. Or maybe it would have. There is no use thinking about what could have been done better, she's here now.

The footsteps kept coming closer, but they didn't speed up. Whoever was out there wasn't in any rush. _It's probably some stupid tourist. Lost. Or a local. Dunk. Heading home_. She thought. Wanting it to be true. But she knew better. Nobody wandered these streets at night except for herself and her shadow. She turned around and kept walking in the opposite direction of her house. Not wanting to lead them somewhere that she could never go back to… this meant… her safe haven was off-limits as well. She would have to improvise.

Spencer was trying to take everything in; street names, alley ways, houses, shops, everything; becoming overwhelmed by the unfamiliar way she had to interact with the city. She didn't know which streets intersected or led to brighter lit ones. She hadn't bothered with maps beyond finding the two places she needed to be at. Everything else lay beyond her comfort zone. She tried to think back to what her friends suggested she check out, streets that had an active night life or large crows she could lose herself in. Nothing came to mind.

She glanced over her shoulder, trying to see if the shape behind her was familiar. It wasn't. Paige wasn't that tall and she always made her presence known. _Shit_. She cursed inaudibly. Her heart beat faster. She turned her head and kept going. It was late at night in a residential street. If she screamed, would anybody hear her? Or would the night swallow everything she had to say? A wave of nausea spread through her, making the sidewalk beneath her feet feel less solid than it was. _Nothing is wrong. He could be going the same way. It's a big city. People wandering around aimlessly isn't that unusual_. She told herself. _Just keep walking_.

Needing to reach an unknown destination past this long and winding street made her quicken her pace. The person behind her sped up slightly, easily keeping in step with her brisk steps. _They're following me_. She realized. Nobody speeds in order to keep up with a stranger. And suddenly, she felt very much like prey.

She tried speeding up again but realized that it would be impossible to put a lot of distance between herself and her pursuer. She was wearing high heels and they weren't. She started breathing harder and heard how their steps were dangerously close. When she swore that she could feel someone reach out to touch her elbow, she bolted. Running down the hill at full speed. She was so afraid and tired that she wanted to just give up. But she didn't. She couldn't. She did not come this far from A to just get mugged… or worse…

The blinding fear that was choking her stopped her from screaming out for help. She tried to shout, but it came out as a hoarse whisper that didn't even reach her own ears. She looked around and saw that the street coming up was wider than the one she was on. Wider streets meant more people. Crowds… help even. She just needed to reach that one street and then… then she could think up of a new plan besides blindly running away.

Her thoughts were so invested in this one goal that she didn't lift her feet high enough to clear the steel grates right after the curve. As her heel caught the grate, she only thought about much it would hurt to land. Because the momentum she had made it impossible to do anything else but fall. She automatically reached out her hands and landed hard on them. then her knees hit the ground. Spencer looked up as she was pushing herself off the ground. Having lost precious time meant that she could clearly see who was pursuing her. She wished she hadn't though.

The man that had been chasing her was tall, with sharp features and high cheekbones. He was imposing, even with his suit and coat hanging loosely around him. It was probably the way he smirked at her and then slowed down. Leisurely making his way towards her. Confident that he would catch up to her now that she had fallen. Spencer pulled her heel out of the grate and realized how useless it was to keep up this pace. He was already a couple of feet away and would soon be upon her. She couldn't outrun him.

Streetlights flickered and for a second too long, they stayed dimmed. Bathing everything in an eerie, semi-darkness. Spencer used this opportunity to run up the hill, and before she reached him, she ducked inside an alley. If she couldn't outrun him, she had to outsmart him. She pressed her back against the wall and tried to slow down her breathing, afraid that she will give herself away.

His footsteps kept going down the hill and her body shook with relief. Then, the lights flickered overhead and she realized that it had been useless. He was standing on the edge of the sidewalk, facing her. He must have rounded back without her detecting his footfalls. He came towards her and grinned. "Gotcha." He told her. His eyes were black and endless, like holes. There was only darkness behind them. She opened her mouth to warn him not to come any closer, but nothing came out.

Suddenly he was on her. Grabbing her shoulders. Shaking her hard. Once, twice, before he slammed her against the wall so hard that her eyes rolled back in pain. For a moment everything went blank and then came back into focus again. He continued to stare at her with those menacing eyes but didn't say anything. Just smiled as he reached into his coat pocket and pulled something out. "I've got something for you… but before I deliver it… I'm going to have a little fun." He licks his lips and she turns her head away. He scowls at this perceived insult and pulls her hair. It burns and she finally screams.

Satisfied he laughs and reaches into his coat again. "I like it when they beg." He trails a knife from the base of her jaw to her collarbone. "I hope you beg." He tells her as he studies her with glinting eyes. She wants to cry, but she doesn't. Instead she closes her eyes and forces herself not to make a sound. This makes him howl in delight. He presses the knife into her skin. Not hard enough to cut her. Just enough to let her know that he's in control.

Spencer opens her eyes and looks up. _You can't see the stars in the city._ As she is thinking this, something moves in her peripheral vision. She turns her head away so she can't see the street. Lest her heart hope for things beyond her reach. He doesn't though. Anger emanates from him as he looks at what she refuses to see. "Hey buddy. Why don't you get lost? We're in the middle of something here."

There is no answer. Only footsteps coming towards them. Slow and determined. "Hey. I said get lost." The man loosens his grip on her and steps forward. Brandishing his weapon as a way to discourage any stupid heroics. The steps don't slow down. Instead, they come at them faster and before the man can swing his knife, a punch lands to the side of his face so hard that he staggers. Spencer should do something to disarm him, but she's paralyzed by fear.

Another punch lands squarely on his face and he swings blindly at his attacker. They easily avoid it and another punch lands on its target. The man that had seen so unstoppable moments before falls to the floor with a dull thud. Prompting Spencer to turn her head. She's shocked to see Paige smiling for a split second before the foot she lifted slams down on his fist. Over and over until his tenuous hold on the knife is broken. She kicks it onto the street.

Spencer is confused.

Paige grabs his coat and slams him against the wall. Just like he had done to her. "Get up." Paige instructs as she pulls him up, helping him fulfill her command. He does as he's told. "Who are you? What do you want?" She punctuates each word with a violent slam of his head against the wall behind him. Spencer is scared that he will pass out before he can even answer the other girl. But a part of her doesn't care. It's the same small part that wants him not to say anything at all so he can keep suffering. So he can pay for what he wanted to do.

"I'm a PI… a private investigator… I was sent here looking for her." He finally cries out, blood staining the back of his neck red. His eyes are unfocused and pleading. Paige turns around and looks at Spencer, silently asking her if she knew what this was about. When she shakes her head, to tell her no. Paige slams the man against the wall again. "Who sent you?" He coughs meekly and tells her that he doesn't know. "Then why did you need to find her?" Paige asks and he holds out what seems like a peace offering to her. "This… I need to give her this." Spencer's eyebrows shoot up. She had forgotten about that. "Grab it." She tells Spencer in a tone that doesn't leave room for argument.

Spencer takes it and steps back, trying to see what it was under the light that filtered through the street next to them. With a sliver of light hitting what she held in her hands just right, she stared at what the man handed her. Startled, she fell back against the wall. Without anything to support her, she slid down a couple of inches and shook her head. This couldn't be her reality.

Not now.

Not ever.

Not again.

"What is it Spence?" Paige asks, throwing a worried glance over her shoulder. Other than that, she doesn't move. Still keeping the man restrained against the wall. His unfocused gaze keeps bouncing around. He's not resisting against Paige's grip anymore. He's simply trying to stay conscious. She doesn't know who he is but she knows what he wants. Spencer thinks herself vile for wanting to continue what Paige started because of it.

What she holds tightly in her shaking hands is unmistakable.

Stray drops hit her hair from above as she stares at the words written in letters so meticulous and thin that they are almost surgical in their precision. The envelope shakes along with her hands. It's his handwriting. Spencer Hastings. It's written so menacingly on the front that it fills her with a horror so familiar that she almost feels like herself again. She swallows the bile that's rising. She can't afford to be ill. She can't afford to be numb. Spencer can't afford to be anything but present because she has to know the secrets held within. So with one small breath, she turns the envelope over and warily rips it open.

Trying to find a way to delay whatever words are written across the pages inside she concentrates on the way her pulse beats in her wrists. It's surprising how steady it feels against her skin. The rest of her feels like it will crumble because even without reading them, she knows that the words are no good. They're no good at all. She never got anything but bad news in that handwriting. She glances up at Paige, but she's staring down the man that attacked her in the dark. She has to do this on her own. So she pulls the papers out, ever so slowly. They're folded carefully in threes, the edges even against each other. She expected nothing less but lethal perfection but it still hits her in the gut. As if this small detail had been unforeseen.

She reads the first couple of sentences and blinks in rapid succession. Half expecting the words to vanish before her eyes, like the grim illusion she thinks they are. They don't go anywhere. Choosing to remain ever so solid and all too real, this was no dream and regardless of how much she drank tonight, the words wouldn't disappear once the sun peaked through the fog.

After a beat, the man's voice broke the silence. "It's a subpoena." Paige stares at him blankly; giving him no indication that she understand what that mean or that she doesn't. Spencer understands but wishes she didn't. His words slur but he keeps talking. "Miss Hastings you have to understand the seriousness of this court order… it states that you have to come to the trial in order to testify. Even if you're an unwilling witness. If not, then you could face a large fine or you could even go to jail… you _have_ to come to court this time if you don't want to be held in contempt. There's no getting around it anymore… there's only so much that your mother can do to circumvent the law for you… especially now."

Paige stares at the papers in her hand and then up at her face. Spencer nods, defeated and a growl escapes from Paige's lips as she slams the man against the wall again. Her voice is low and menacing. "Now maybe you don't remember this, but I was there when those girls disappeared… I lived through the terror of the body count rising in Rosewood… so I know a thing or two about people vanishing into thin air…" A nervous chuckle escapes his lips. Paige presses her face against his, their noses touching so intimate and suffocating that he finally understands. This is not a joke. She means every word and suddenly he's afraid. Not just nauseous.

"They died and their killers didn't leave a trace of evidence. This? It's all circumstantial. So believe me when I tell you that if you ever. _Ever_. Cross our paths again. Here, or anywhere else… regardless of where we meet, in a coffee shop, in court, or even down the street in Paris, ten years from now… you better hope to god that you have your affairs in order because I will not hesitate to end you. I will personally show you just how easy it can be to become another small town tragedy." His lips tremble and his voice breaks as he tries to tell her that she made herself clear.

"Okay." He chokes out. He needs to get away. Realizing his mistake too late as he stares into her dark eyes. He thought he could make easy money by intimidating Spencer Hastings into coming back. Handing her the subpoena and then slapping her around a couple of times, as instructed by the mysterious hooded figure that asked him to perform this one task. But staring into this girl's eyes, cold and dangerous, he knows now why underestimating teenage girls had gotten so many men killed back in Rosewood. And he wasn't ready to become another one of them. Regardless of how good the pay was.

Paige's nostrils flare and he flinches. She tightens her grip on his rumpled suit and slams him against the pavement. Forcing him to land painfully on his shoulder. He cries out and looks up at her. "Run." She warns him with such murderous intent beneath that one word that he can't scramble fast enough out of the alley and into the night.

Paige's chest is heaving with exertion; her breathing is heavy, coming out in steady streams that snake around her face. Spencer stares at her, trying to determine if this is all due to the strength it took to subdue the man, to make him understand that this was no game to them. Or if it was from the inhuman effort it took to physically restrain herself from going too far tonight. Spencer recognized that momentary look of pleasure that flashed through her face as she held his fate so completely in her hands. It was probably the same one that A felt when they fell into their games, becoming their playthings again and again. She didn't recognize the way Paige was looking at her now, but she wasn't afraid.

Maybe she should be.

Spencer didn't trust her own judgment anymore.

Not after A.

Paige is still looking at her with new eyes. Judging her without pretense that she is doing anything but that; studying her. She blushes under the bluntness of her scrutiny but doesn't look away. She never backed down from a fight before and damn her if she's going to start tonight. Not after the letter she received. She can't back down. Paige's eyes keep roaming her face and after a couple more seconds of carefully analyzing her, she nods. It's so small that it's almost imperceptible. Whatever she was struggling with, she has made up her mind.

The other girl steps forward, coming into full view under the pulsing streetlight above their heads. She doesn't stop until she's right in front of Spencer. Their faces are a few inches apart. She doesn't feel threatened though, because she's not looking at her the same way she stared down that man. It's different… so honest and raw that it's dangerous in a completely different way. Paige takes Spencer's face between her hands and she kisses her mouth roughly. Spencer's hands reach out to grab the back of Paige's neck. She needs more of this… this new Paige that is full of desire for her. But almost as quickly as Paige's lips were upon hers, they're gone. Leaving her craving more… needing more.

She's breathing as hard as Paige was before.

"Thank you." She says stupidly. Not sure if she's thanking Paige for saving her or for kissing her like she meant it. Like she could finally stop competing with Emily for she was being seen as her own person.

"My pleasure." Paige tells her, voice low and full of wanting. The words exchanged are the same as always, and not at all. They're heavy with the possibility of something more.

* * *

**Author's Note:** It took forever to get this chapter right… but I am so happy with the way it turned out, so I hope you guys enjoyed it.


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